


Writings in the Spaces Between

by Twilit



Series: The Gospel Bright and Tenebrous [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Eldritch Horror AU, F/F, Sadstuck, Supernatural AU - Freeform, Vampire AU, tags to be updated as series progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:30:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilit/pseuds/Twilit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short stories in the universe of The Gospel Bright and Tenebrous, a universe of eldritch beasts, old gods and the base desires and follies of humankind. The great curtains are falling on our world and our species' run is almost up. Herein lie the side stories of the heroes and monsters of our setting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Caverns of the Dreaming Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and thank you for reading! Please note that each chapter of this work will take place asynchronous with the main work and you should read the chapter notes to see where you should have read up to. For the first chapter, In the Caverns of the Dreaming Dead, please have read up to the end of [La Sangre y El Dolor](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1094430).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter, In the Caverns of the Dreaming Dead, please have read up to the end of [La Sangre y El Dolor](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1094430).

God above, but it is hot here. You are suddenly glad you have done away with your mourning clothes for things more colourful and diaphanous. The black was starting to oppress you. And it would have probably killed you in this weather, no matter that you are powered by the sun itself.

Your name is Kanaya Maryam, and you are a vampire. You are pretty sure that you can't die from heatstroke, but you are not willing to test that theory right now here in the Armenian Highlands. That you are here to keep an appointment well over a year overdue is an important contributing factor. 

Duena, your secretary/assistant/occasional haemofont, discovered an appointment in the date book of your predecessor. Since neither of you spoke or read Arabic, Duena had applied herself to learning the tongue and after months of going through records, address books and notes, the pair of you had something of a handle on the goings-on of Porrim de la Dolorosa.

You wonder, distantly, mournfully, if there will be a time when you will only be known as the Dolorosa yourself.

Shaking your dolor off, you force focus into your mind. Duena discovered this appointment and you had done the research on who it was with. Tomes of ancient chiropteran lore later, you discovered something truly fascinating. Not only did the location suddenly make sense, but half a hundred questions had been laid to rest, though naturally more sprung up.

Your train of thought is interrupted as a terrific noise springs up over the hill and an absolute jalopy of a jeep follows it, clanking, clattering and coughing. You wrinkle your nose in distaste and regret your choice of white suddenly as it is sure to be ruined by the passing cloud of dust and smog. But to your even greater dismay, the jeep pulls up to the bus stop you occupy and its driver shuts the engine off. In the cloud of dust, you can make out a feminine figure, dark skin, a mass of curly hair pulled back into a bushy ponytail. This, you suppose, must be your guide.

The jeep's occupant unfolds herself from the driver's seat and approaches you, hand extended. "Mrs. Dolorosa? I'm Aradia Megido! Thanks for getting back to me!"

You are a tall woman, but Ms. Megido comes nearly up to your eyes. But where you are willowy (if you're being generous; you'd always considered yourself far too lanky) Aradia is stocky, built. Her grasp is calloused, but clean and warm. Your shake it firmly. Despite your relative sizes, you could probably still tear her apart, but she doesn't need to know that. She also probably has a good ten years on you, judging by her careworn skin, but you are strangely comforted by that.

"I am afraid I'm not Porrim. She passed away last year," you inform Ms. Megido, real regret clouding your voice.

"Oh! My apologies, er, condolences for your loss." Her accent is charming, though her command of English is near perfect. Your Turkish is abyssmal, as you so stunningly demonstrated on your way out here. Your ancient Armenian is even worse, hence the guide.

"Thank you. I am, however, her successor and am charged with taking over her duties. My apologies that it took this long to get back in contact with you."

"No problem!" She leads you to the jeep and fishes a blanket out of the back to throw over the driver's seat. You smile your gratitude, a small, beaming thing, practiced on the streets of Milan and the crowds of Paris. The dusky-skinned Turk blushes visibly at it, like a teenage girl. Interesting.

"So you want to head up into the caves still?" she asks once you're on your way.

"Correct. I trust that won't be an issue?"

"None at all. I'm just not sure what a, ah, fashio _nees_ ta? wants in up there."

Her strange emphasis, cute as it is, draws a curling smile out of your lips as you hold on for dear undeath as the Jeep goes rattling on its way. You almost don't despair for your whites.

"It's a meeting. The Dolorosa also has... charitable operations."

"Weird. I didn't think anyone lived up there still."

"No, I'd rather think not."

"Yes, all the electromagnetic _bok_ going wrong means people just leave it alone, live somewhere more convenient."

"Oh?"

"Yes. We're alright at the base camp, but between that and permission not being given, we can't dig at the caves."

You have an inkling why that is. Your... clients are clearly not without connections in the modern world.

"Will we go into them today?"

"We could, sure. Not sure how much light would be left when we're done, though?"

"Ah. Let us postpone until tomorrow then."

"Sure thing, Ms... oh my! I'd completely forgot to ask your name."

You shake your head. "That is alright. After all, I did not give it. Dolorosa is fine for me as well. Just not 'missus' if you please."

"Ah, so no mister then either?" she asks, looking at you sidelong.

"No, never," you return, in what you think is a coy matter. You are absolutely hopeless at flirting, but you can't have done such a bad job from the artificially neutral "Mmm," vibrating out from the depths of her throat. Her throat, bared in a dusty tank top that shows off far more skin than you've seen in a week. Her throat, where you can see the heated pulse of blood and _oh goddammit_ you need to feed. You'd thought all this sun would be enough.

"Out of curiosity, your camp, when does it serve dinner?"

"Not for a few hours. Are you hungry? I can-"

"No, that's fine. I have snacks I can munch on in my tent. While I change," you say wryly, holding up a brown pant leg. That used to be white. Aradia- Ms. Megido, you correct- laughs, a warm hearty thing that does nothing if not make you more hungry. Damned psychosomatic reactions.

* * *

Dinner passes without incident, thanks to you going through a bloodpack from your cooler. Aradia approves of the khakis you changed into, although she jokingly protests that she wasn't able to show off the elegant city girl she found stranded on the side of the road to her camp mates. You promise to be hopelessly and publicly incapable of roughing it to assuage her. It is an easy promise to make and even easier to keep.

When everyone goes to bed, you pretend to do the same, but crack out a flashlight and your still-guilty pleasure in your tent: fantastically badly written vampire romance. Head of an international clothing empire, dutiful saviour to your race, avenging daughter, that's you. Kanaya Maryam: smut addict.

"You should get some rest, Ms. Dolorosa. It will be a tiring day," teases a voice outside your tent, getting nearly a foot of air clearance from you. Heightened senses matter little when you are so distracted.

You poke your head out of the tent and put on an exaggeratedly innocent face. Crouched outside your tent is your guide."Oh, but just another chapter, Ms. Megido."

She laughs again, and her magnificent hair falls across her face, unbound from her ponytail. You swallow nervously. Whisperingly, "Please, call me Aradia."

She leans forward on her haunches in a brilliant show of balance and asks, curiously, "What were you reading?"

You colour for the first time, "Ah, nothing much, just some trash fiction before bed. Guilty pleasure and all that."

Immediately after saying that, you know you should not have, as Aradia abandons her crouch and tries to look into your tent on all fours. "Guilty pleasure? Oh now I _have_ to know! What does the exqu _ee_ site lady read all night long?"

Hurriedly you stuff the book behind you, into the folds of the sleeping bag. "Absolutely nothing of any interest whatsoever to such a worldly young woman like yourself!"

Her puppy eyes are something else, gloriously huge pools of soft brown, glowing in the light of your tiny reading lamp. "Pleeease?"

You swallow. Hard. You need to take back some control here, this is simply ridiculous for a woman of your stature (but completely par for the course for the blushing, stuttering girl you feel inside). "Fine. If you tell me why you were crouched so voyeuristically outside my tent."

"Why, I was just on my way back from the portas when I saw this glow that I absolutely had to investigate. Curiosity got the better of me! And then I see the familiar figure of someone hunched over, reading by candlelight. Although I suppose its a lamp in there. It is a lamp in there?" she asks, blabbering some and curling a strand of hair about her finger. So, she isn't as composed as she'd like you to believe.

As you shift from the entrance and back into the tent, you ask "Read much by candlelight, did you?"

As Aradia blinks in surprise at the opening, you draw out the book and hide it by your side. Then she crawls into your tent and suddenly everything is rather close. 

"Yep! My mother would yell at me for ruining my eyes, take my books and lights and I'd buy candles and more books with my little earnings and it would happen allllll over again."

She is right up against you, shoulder to shoulder, forced into such proximity in the confines of the the tent. Your breath quickens as her fingers interlace with yours and she whispers, "Are you going to ruin your eyes, Ms. Dolorosa?"

Your snort is a delicate thing of amusement, as you are privvy to knowledge she can't have. "I hardly think so, Aradia. And call me Kanaya."

"Kanaya! Such a pretty name," she says leaning in, close, so close. "But I think you're already missing things."

"O-oh?"

"Like... this!" she exclaims, snatching the book out from under your intertwined grip. You lunge after it panickedly, but she rolls away from you and curls about it, giggling incessantly. "Ohhh! 'Love at Stake: Be Still My Vampire Heart!' Kanaya! Are you into vampires?"

She asks this as you try to scrabble for the book, stretching across her, following it clutched in her hand as she reaches into the corner of the tent. Her spare hand makes a mock claw and she scratches playfully at you. She hisses silently, before breaking into further giggles. You suppress the urge to flash fangs in mischievous response and instead sigh in defeat, rolling your eyes.

"Fine, you have discovered my horrible secret, you wanton invader. I hope you are content in your despoilings of my private activities."

"Oh, _I'm_ the wanton?" she says, dropping the book and running her hand down the length of your arm extended across her and pouting. "You lure me into your tent, pin me to the floor and I'm the wanton."

"Er. Yes," you manage, your mouth drying as you realize the compromising position you've put the two of you in. Aradia's hand comes to a rest on your shoulder and another joins it opposite. They don't push or pull or even hold you there, they are just warm on your bare shoulders as she is warm below your propped up form.

"This is where you decide what to do with me," she whispers, the ghost of her words brushing past your ear as breath. She is uncertain herself, biting her lip minutely. Or perhaps simply playing the seductress herself and very well at that. 

In response you manage a considering "Hmm," while subtly trying to find your lamp. Your search leads your hand into the too-far recesses of your tiny tent and lowers you slowly, until you are pressed into her and and can feel the delicious beat of her heart through her breast. Her eyes are wide, enormous, beautiful and her breath comes low and fast. You are falling, still heart in your mouth and you feel like she could swallow your soul whole. Your fingers close about the lamp and switch it off with a snap the coincides with the locking of your lips.

She gives a high whine as her hands go from on your shoulders into your hair and down your side, caressing. You shiver at her touch and its a physical struggle to keep yourself sheathed, keep your fangs from pricking her lips, her curious tongue. But you are sated, and you manage, until she breaks the kiss, eyes afire. She rolls you over with little trouble and no resistance, and goes for your jaw, your ear, your neck. You sigh, hoarsely and let her have her way with you, legs entwining with hers and hands wandering.

* * *

The next morning is, to your everlasting shock and surprise, not awkward in the least. Aradia is already gone when you wake up, some four hours later. The darkness is just beginning to lift outside and you figure you had better play the part of a normal human who needs something approaching a normal amount of sleep. So you stay in your sleeping bag, snuggled into the remnant warmth of the woman you'd spent the night with and read by the liminal glow of an approaching dawn.

When you do step out into the morning, Aradia is making ready at the Jeep.

"Oh! You're up early! I hope you slept well."

"Wonderfully," is all you can manage and hope it comes out as demure. From her beaming smile, she she is well enough happy and that is that.

* * *

The trip up to the foothills where you are supposed to be meeting is spent with your head down and hands keeping your notebook flat so that you can review your notes. The only conversation is when Aradia asks,

"So why did you need to know if I spoke Armenian? And older dialects?"

"Hmm? Oh, in case it was necessary. I don't think it will be, your Turkish should be sufficient."

"Ah, so I'm to be a translator as well? Perhaps I should be charging extra."

Distracted as you are reviewing your notes, you miss the teasing note in her voice and simply nod, "I can pay you later."

Aradia's stony, irritated silence has passed by the time you pull up off a track. "Time to hike!"

"Very well," you say and reach for a headscarf from your bag, while Aradia wraps a jacket around her hips and tucks all her hair under a cap that should not by any rights be able to contain it. 

On your way up, you get the feeling that Aradia is perhaps showing off. She scrambles easily up the rocks of the path, never once losing her footing, displaying the bounding skill of a mountain goat and all the enthusiasm besides. You keep to the path yourself, and demure when she offers a hand up a particularly large boulder to maintain your veneer of a silly city woman.

"I'm surprised, though!" Aradia mentions. "You're keeping up no problem."

"What, did you think that being used to a life of luxury and air conditioning immediately disqualified me from being fit?"

"Oh, you're clearly _fit_ ," she returns and it takes you a moment to realize she means the British usage. Your blush comes easily, with a smile. In truth you don't think your human body could have made it halfways up this slope without a rest. And certainly not in ridiculous designer boots.

The sun is starting to reach its zenith when Aradia points out outcroppings off in the distance. The pair of you leave the path and make your way to the entrance of the caves, where you are supposed to fulfill an appointment long overdue. You pick your way carefully across the loose ground, enduring Aradia's teasing and quips about your silly footwear. Reminding yourself that it is important to maintain this facade as long as possible, you give a rueful smile and nod in agreement.

The entrance to the caves is a relatively narrow slit in the towering rocks, but one that is large enough for the pair of you to move through with ease. From her pack, Aradia removes an LED lamp and an old fashioned torch.  
"In case the lamp goes out. Whiiiich it pretty much will here." You can't complain. Your pack has much stranger items. "So, how far are we supposed to go in here?"

"Quite the ways in. I'll keep an eye open, see where we are supposed to stop."

"Well, alright." Also from the pack Aradia draws a handgun, which she holsters at the small of her back. At your stare, she snorts. "Look, you're sweet and everything, Kanaya, but this stinks and I'm not going anywhere without some protection."

After a moment, in which you want to apologize for underestimating her, you nod. "I suppose it does. But I assure you, it will not be necessary."

"Sure, sure. Still, it's staying."

And with that she leads you into the caves, the harsh light of the LED lamp contrasting sharply with the soft glow of what sunlight has managed its way into the complex. The deeper she leads you, the more the lamp dominates, until you are progressing solely by its blue light. Rocks skitter lightly at your passing, but otherwise the only sound is that of your breathing.

"They say Christian heretics used to hide in here, in the days of Byzantium," Aradia ventures, to break the silence.

"Yes, and they were abandoned once Constantinople fell, since the Ottomans were largely more tolerant of the various People of the Book."

She regards you with surprise. "Well, it took some time, sure, but well done! You know your stuff."

"I've had reason to read up on it lately."

"More late nights reading by lamplight?" 

"Oh, you have no idea." If she has any opinion on that turn of phrase, she does not voice it. 

You keep watch for the signs. A small boulder worn into the shape of a curled up cat. Stalactites and stalagmites that make the Roman numeral IX. And finally, a sudden turn into the top of a chasm that opens up before you. The light does not penetrate far and you stop your guide.

"Really? Here?"

"Yes, I am quite sure."

"We're very... exposed here Aradia."

It gets a patient smile from you. This does look quite suspicious. "Still believe I am up to no good? Well, I suppose this will not help matters."

You lean over the chasm, and brace yourself on the other side as Aradia gasps and moves to catch you. She stops herself as she sees you feel along the wall for something. You find the indentations that the Dolorosa mentioned, slip your fingers in and press down. Nothing. You push harder, putting your back into it, or your tainted blood in this case. With monumental effort, dust finally shifts and you manage to depress the switch.  
The ground, the very earth around you, rumbles and groans as a tall section of rock moves out and over, grinding along on gears older than the country you stand in. Stale air blows past the pair of you and then before you gapes a secret passage, an ominous entryway into the dark. 

Aradia's mouth hangs loose in shock, the lamp nearly slipping from her grasp. You carefully remove it, and hold it up into the dark. The passageway seems to lead into the earth for quite a while. You are not surprised. Then, with a cracking voice, Aradia says something in Turkish. When you look at her, and her at you, she repeats it in English.

"What the fuck."

You smile ruefully and hop the short ways over the gap in the ground, into the darkness.

"Kanaya!" Aradia hisses. "We can't go in there! This is a huge discovery! We have to inform the ministry, get permission-"

"Pardon me, Aradia, but I already have all the permission I need," you say, holding up a worn letter from your pack. "From the occupants of this little settlement."

"What the fuck is that, Kanaya?"

You hold it at arms length and pretend to read it. "Well, I believe it's a letter. An invitation of sorts."

"What does it say?" Aradia is leaning over the gap, eyes darting between it, the lamp and the letter. Curiosity is getting the better of her.

"Come and read it. I certainly can't."

"You-?!" Aradia swears in exasperation, but hops into the narrow passage with you and snatches the letter. Scouring it, she immediately frowns. "How _old_ is this? Is this vellum?"

"Possibly? It is about two or three years old."

"Two or- Kanaya! This is written in Middle Armenian!"

"Oh good, so you can read it."

"Barely! It's asking for the... the blessing of the... br-Bright Mother? For the children who have gone, no... hidden? in the dark. They ask for it by, oh, that was last year."

"Yes, I am unfortunately somewhat late to this appointment. Perhaps you would like to lead on so that I'm not further delayed?"

"Are you this Bright Mother?" Aradia asks, wide-eyed, confused.

"I am now," you answer regretfully.

"This was meant for your... mother?"

You shake your head as a familiar weight settles in your gut and on your shoulders. You straighten under it. It is all you can do. "It was meant for the Dolorosa. And I am her, now."

"Kanaya... what's going on?" Aradia stares at you, lined as you are by the lamp that rests at your hip. You make quite the striking figure, you’re sure.

"Come and see," you say and turn into the tunnel, taking the light with you. You swallow thickly, once you've turned from her. You are not good at this convincing, this salesmanship. You are sure you are going to have to finish this without speaking a lick of the language and looking a ridiculous fool, but then you hear the steps of Aradia following you and then she's almost pressed up against you.

"I'd be really crappy archaeologist if I backed out now," she hisses in your ear, "but I _am_ going to need an explanation."

You smile in relief, almost slumping and continue to lead the way. A confident bearing is important, but it only comes from being able to see much further into the dark than Aradia. The lamp flickers, but holds. Or at least it does, until the first switchback, when it gives out without warning. You try to turn it off and on, but Aradia is already lighting the torch.

"No point. It'll work again after we leave. If we leave." Despite her words, she takes the lead, snaking a hand into yours as she advances past you.

Deeper and deeper you go, past one, then another switchback. The dark somehow deepens and the radius of the torches light seems to shrink. But you feel strangely at home, as if you are stepping into a world always meant for you. It is like slipping into an old, familiar dream, invisible webs of slumber and peace parting before you. The dead rest easily here. Aradia must feel otherwise, as her grip threatens to crush your own. Or it would, if not for-

-and then you are around a corner and she sucks her breath in with a gasp. For an instant, you can see a vast cavern with strange, hemispherical buildings before the torch goes out with a shriek of wind and things drop from the ceiling.

You sense their aggression and even as Aradia cries out, you haul her to the ground and cover her with yourself, hissing protectively. Your hand comes up in a signal and you bark,

"HALT!"

even as you let a little of the warmth in you seep out and your fingers begin to glow dimly. The figures shriek and howl, covering their faces and retreat shufflingly. Your point made, you cut the light. A low voice comes through the dark, spare and whispering. You turn to your companion and say gently,

"Aradia. It's alright. You're safe with me. But I need your help. I can't understand them."

You feel her shift below you, her head coming up and giving you a faceful of hat. Her breathing is quick and panicked, but you can hear her trying to get it under control. Her pulse hammers in her veins and you track its pace where you hold her arm. You are not sure, but you think if you can feel it here, hear it from here, the others in this cavern likely can as well.

“He says, ah, uh, I think he is saying, ‘You are not Parrem?’”

“Please tell him as respectfully as possible that Porrim has passed and that I am the new Dolorosa.”

Aradia fumbles out some words, the effort of trying to get her head around the language visibly calming her. You retreat slightly and raise your head, careful to maintain contact with Aradia, blind in the dark. In the absence of light, your hearing sharpens, and you can hear the dust crush under the tread of these distant kin, hear them move about you and your companion. Their quiet speech is easy enough to discern, even for Aradia and she stiffens. Concerned, you murmur,

“What is it?”

“They… I think they are angry that you brought a- brought me. Kanaya, why are they calling me human?”

You can almost feel the fear waft off the large woman in the moment you are silent. Stroking soothingly at her arm you ask, “Would you like to see? Or would you prefer me to tell you?”

Soft, nervous laughter. “I don’t think I’d believe you if you told me.”

“The please tell them that the Dolorosa would like permission for her companion, that’s you, to see by firelight.”

Another stuttering set of words, followed by sudden stillness all around. The dead’s version of an intake of breath. And then finally, a return.

“He would like to know who claims the title of Dolorosa now and how Porrim passed.”

Hiding your irritation at this blatant deflection, you nod, straighten and stand, drawing Aradia up with you. Facing towards where you think the voice came from, you tell him,

“I am Kanaya Maryam. My predecessor was murdered by the Orphaner’s get.”

Aradia tries to communicate your words, but, “I don’t know how to say Orphaner or what you mean.”

“Try scar-faced, power-obsessed lunatic incompetents with crossbows.”

“Um…”

“Try, please.”

She does, and there is at least one sound of amusement before the lead voice returns. “He wants to know what happened to them.”

You consider your answer and how best to frame it and how best to position yourself. “Ask him what he thinks happened.”

And as Aradia finishes delivering the translation you snap your fingers, a clear, sharp sound in the endless dark. You can almost feel them flinch, recognizing the sound and assuming what was to follow, the incandescent wrath of a sundrinker. Then the realization sets in and tone of the dark shifts from hurt and aggressive to fearful, but respectful of your power. The circle widens. Another moment that stretches into eternity. And then more from the voice.

“He, ah, Yeprem that is, that’s his name, bids welcome to the Dolorosa and her, um, servant.”

“Sorry, they’re…”

“Old fashioned? No fucking kidding, this language hasn’t been around for hundreds of years. I can light the torch, by the way. Should I?”

“By all means, if you’re ready.”

You hear her start her lighter and the circle widen even more, unsure. Then the flame of the lighter and the catch of the torch sends light forth and you get your first good look at the assembled vampires. Your stomach immediately drops.

They are clad in the sparest of clothing, plain and extremely worn shifts of a nameless fabric. Patches of leather stick out here and there. Hair is almost non-existant on their skulls and veins are clearly visible. Stomachs are concave where you can see them, and bones stick out like knives everywhere. Their skin is taught over their limbs and papery where it isn’t obviously burnt. Guilt seeps through your veins immediately. You should have realized that these people would be affected even worse by your display. 

Cracked lips draw back over yellowed teeth, where there are even lips to speak of, and many hide their huge, sunken eyes from the light. But its enough for Aradia to see the fangs, cracked and ancient though they may be. Another wave of palpable fear.

“Holy fuck.”

“Aradia…”

“They’re… you’re… you must be kidding.”

“I am afraid not. We are vampires.”

Aradia’s eyes dart between the circle at the edge of her light and you. “But you’re… and they’re…”

A cock of your head. “You will have to be more articulate than that, I must say.”

“You’re _beautiful_ ,” your heart hitches like a fool, “and they’re-”

You cut her off. “They are starving. Or close enough. This is a clan of ascetics. They’ve forsworn the blood of most living creatures, so rest easy, they are not a danger to you. Calling them monstrous is calling anyone who has faced deprivation the same.”

Aradia looks simultaneously horrified and ashamed and you share in that guilt. You did not need to spring that on her. “Please tell them that I apologize for the earlier display and that I have horse’s blood if they wish to heal.”

You take off your pack as Aradia continues to translate, her budding confidence eroding with the new reality facing her. Her fingers tremble and she try to hide them, but you catch the motion and the others likely do as well. This was not a good idea. You have brought still-beating prey into the den of starving hunters. 

You take from a cooled pocket several packets of blood that you had specially extracted at a vet’s. Hands out, you offer them to the circle, stepping forward. A few do not retreat from you and a small, visibly aged man with the barest of hint of hair steps forward and accepts them with a word. You recognise the voice from the dark and nod.

You step back, and Aradia nearly flinches from you. You can’t blame her and give a sad smile. But over the sound of plastic rupturing and messy slurping, she steels herself and looks you in the eye.

“You could have just told me.”

A lone eyebrow raises, a practiced, elegant motion that you’re confident of. It says it all.

“Ok, I might not have believed you, but…! Oh my god, did you drink from me?!”

You fold your arms across your chest. “Most certainly not. Just as these ascetics refuse to drink from anyone sentient, I do not drink from anyone without permission.”

“Oh,” she rubs at her neck, a conspicuous move, but something for her hands to do. “That’s good, I guess. Nice of you.”

“And before you ask, no, I did not seduce you into my tent last night any more than you crawled in of your own volition.”

A wry grin, “Ok, yes, I will admit that was mostly me playing you. You were so cute and bashful though!”

“Please, let’s continue to belittle me in front of an assemblage of my kin that haven’t seen another soul in who knows how long.”

Aradia looks like she’s about to say something else, but the speaker of the group appears silently again. Those rough, aged sounds tumble from his spare lips again and your translator dips her head to listen.

“Yeprem would like to know, if it isn’t too much trouble, when they may begin the, ah, climb? No, um, Ascent.”

“We can begin now, but please tell him that I am still young and could not bring such a large group out at the same time.”

Aradia’s warm voice is a heady contrast to Yeprem’s and while they discuss, you look at the group, who are growing more confident, eager even. Blood now spatters their shifts and hands and they lick at it hungrily, but no burns from your radiation remain. You try a smile, something you hope is warm and welcoming. It has little effect, perhaps heightening what you recognize now as adoration or worship. You are suddenly very uncomfortable.

“Yeprem says that is fine, that the pilgrims normally Ascend by themselves or in small… families? The rest normally wait at what I think they mean is the first switchback until the Dolorosa returns with the previous group.”

You nod and turn to leave. “We can begin immediately then.”

* * *

On the way up, you lead, your shadow long and flickering in the dark. Your strides are confident, even if you are not. You are keenly aware that you must not let this facade of competence crack. As you told Aradia, there is no danger here, but you are a spiritual figure to these people. Their hope, their literal light in the dark. You cannot falter in your portrayal. Pressure builds, even as you rise through the rock.

Yeprem does what speaking occurs.

“The Dolorosa could shed light without burning us.”

“Could she? I will have to practice that.”

“Your rebirth, I can guess, was difficult.”

“Very.”

“How then, if I may ask, did you come to take on the duties so quickly?”

“It has hardly been quick. I must apologize again in the delay in coming to you.”

“Please, do not, Dolorosa.”

“But the duties… well, I was helped along by Spinnerette Serket.”

Yeprem nearly stumbles before being caught by one of his people. “Serket? It is little wonder you dealt with the scarred sons so quickly, then.”

Silence then, until the switchback. Then,

“These will go first,” and Yeprem ushers a man and a woman forwards. They step forwards quietly, heads down, only looking at you quickly to bow a little, formally. You gesture for them to follow and you head further out. Aradia goes in front of you now, but looks back.

“Um, so, since you didn’t go up in smoke, I guess that stuff about the sun killing vampires is…?”

“No, it is quite true. But my line is unique in that we can… absorb the lethal radiation. So we can go where others can’t, and take them with us, if we like.”

“So this whole Ascending…?”

“It is the first I have heard of it being this spiritual, but yes, that is what I am doing now.”

“Ok,” she says and considers. “Why?”

Another sad smile. “Can you imagine a life without seeing the sun? What about several? Several hundred years? We may all be monsters of the night, but every last one of us was once human. We would go mad, or suicidal without the sun every once in a while.”

“So you do this for… all of them?”

“Any I can reach. Or that can reach me.”

“What, without help? Are you the only one?”

“Yes. I am the last and only of this line. There must only ever be one Dolorosa. If too many of us walked in sunshine, that would be the end of humanity eventually and then the end of us. Remember, we were once human, and stupid too.”

“That’s all sorts of unfair. How do you know?”

“I was reborn during a fight to take control of the Dolorosa line. I lost my best friend and a mentor that one night and another mentor later. Believe me, I know how stupid we can all be.”

She is silent thereafter, but you can hear her sniffle a bit and are touched.

* * *

You go up into the light a dozen or more times with the ascetics that day, keeping them safe while they bathe in the light of Sol, their deadly nemesis. Many go up with blindfolds, their eyes so used to the dark, they cannot bear the light. Others do not, and try to open their eyes. They flinch, cry out and weep.

“Does it hurt?” you ask the first time, near panic at the idea of ruining this all so soon. The vampire crying tears of blood nods, but forces her lips into a grin, speaking even more softly than Yeprem.

“Yes, she says. But it does not burn,” whispers Aradia.

The woman weeps, and tries her best to look out into the sun, her shoulders shaking in sobs of pain and joy. A trickle at the corner of your eye. A blink.

Others embrace, each other, and you. Some take your hands and kiss them, thanking you over and over. Some simply stand and bask in that particular warmth that they would not feel again for longer than many humans will live. You are brimming, overful with energy and tears besides. You keep it in, though, you have to. One crack, and the whole facade would come crumbling down.

Eventually it comes to Yeprem, who follows at a sort of slow, sedate pace, not at all eager or nervous. You suppose it is why he was the leader, or at least spokesperson. A person worth emulating, for someone in your position. 

When he steps fully into the fading sunlight, he spreads his arms and turns his palms up in a gesture of worship older than civilization itself. A slow smile spreads on his ravaged face, contentment bubbling up from a place deep inside. He cracks his eyes open a touch and winces, but keeps at it. 

“Ah,” he says. “I am a selfish man. I went last, encouraged the others to take their time so that I could have a chance to see this. Sundown. A selfish man, trading time for this sight. Less time, more beauty.”

Aradia laughs a little at the translation, a high, fey thing and wipes joyful tears from her eyes. 

You risk a little, call him foolish, and he laughs in agreement, seating himself carefully on a rock. You swallow a sob again and are glad. Sundown takes a while at this latitude, in this season, so he has time. But eventually, long before the sun has actually passed he says,

“You can leave me, now.” 

You look at Aradia, confused. Was there an error in translation? She shrugs helplessly.

“You mean after dusk?”

Yeprem looks at you then, still a moment and then sorrow covers his face, a thing of hurt and empathy. “Oh no. She did not have a chance to tell you.”

Your hair goes up on end and your senses come alive in manner of a predator at full alert. Calmly, so carefully calmly, you ask,

“Tell me what?”

“Sometimes, Dolorosa, your duties will be take one of our kin out into the sunlight for their last time. Sometimes, young Kanaya, we simply want to die.”

Yellow eyes crack open again, and a red tear slips out. You choke down a sob, hand grasping at your throat, trying to still it, keep it from breaking out. But you cannot hold together any longer and it cracks out, the crack in your facade. The pressure of your position splits your mind and you break down.

“No. Nononono, I can’t do this,” you whisper. You are leaking tears, pure saline and blood together and it is all you can do not to leak radiation.

“Now now, D-dolorosa,” the old vampire says, through a stuttering and tearful Aradia. “I have lived a long, g-good life, according to my own path, my own ideals. And now, I feel myself slipping, both from that path and from from myself.”

“I’m supposed to be a-a guardian!” You yell, a shocking noise, hurled forth from lungs so powerful, Aradia covers her ears. “A symbol of hope, a saviour! Not an executioner!”

“A hero, I mean, sorry, saviour? Really now, Kanaya.” He gets up and pats your on the shoulder, awkwardly. But his hand rests there. “You _are_ a symbol of hope. You gave us hope and we didn’t even know you, or know where you were or when you would come. But you gave us hope, just by existing.”

“I can’t do this, Yeprem. I just… oh god, don’t ask me this. Please, just let me bring you back to your people.”

“They know my decision, young Dolorosa. And if you do not do this now, when it is asked of you again, will you be able to do it then?” You cry out, in pain, in actual physical pain at this emotional torture. “Will you deny them all?”

You drop to your knees, and Aradia is suddenly beside you, hugging you close, crying with you. You turn into her shoulder, bleeding tears into her jacket. Yeprem kneels with difficulty before the pair of you and you cannot face him. You want to hate him, want to resent him, for shattering you like this but you cannot muster anything except anguish. This is not what you came out here for.

“I am sorry to have to tell you this, but it will happen again. You will live a long, long time and others will want to fade, go into dust. You must learn to accept it. You must do your duty.”

Aradia’s voice hitches on almost every syllable, but she powers on, translating true. You are shaking, trembling as he bows his head, his brow to yours. “Thank you for doing what you have done for my people, and for what you will do for all of us. But now, I think, I will walk, for a bit. Do not follow, please.”

Creakingly, he rises. Without enough blood, his body must have reverted to almost human aging processes long ago and cartilage must be scarce. You realize his stately pace was from pain, not nobility and let out another sob, clutching at Aradia. It is that which finally gives you the perspective not to chase after him, demand that he return to his coven, his clan, his family.

Still, you push your field out further and further as he goes, walking among the rocks and sparse bushes in these foothills. While one part of you slowly lets go, turns to an inevitable future, another grasps desperately at a present where you aren’t a failure, where you are still a beacon of hope for your new people. Yeprem's old, bony fingers, claws really, brush through leaves and weeds, cup tiny flowers, the gestures of an old man saying goodbye to his homeland. His head goes back and you can see his chest expand, can barely hear the rattle of lungs long dead as he takes in the smells of dusk.

He gets closer and closer to the very edge of where you can take the radiation from him, and he slows. Stops. Looks over his shoulder. He must feel the beginning of the burning, that insane itch that you have read about, heard described, but will never feel. He nods one last time and steps forward into the twilight.

Old as he is, weak as he is, his papery skin goes up like wildfire. A strangled, shrieking cry reaches both of you, drawing a start and a cry of sympathetic pain from Aradia, and a blazing shout of 

_**”NO!”**_

from you. Blazing, because that is when the dam breaks, shattered by the agony of an old man dying as he wishes. A star is born in the countryside for a moment as you light up, bright, painfully bright light filling the sky, the earth, your very bones. Your eyes are fixed on his burning outline, there one moment and then, with the passing of your light, gone. Dust and ash on the wind. So much sunlight you released, his end was instantaneous.

You collapse, finally, aglow with the warmth and light of the sun. Aradia catches you, holds you in sorrow and wonder. You just grip her shirt and cry into it, as she rocks you and pets at your hair. Comforts the immortal monster, incapable of even saving those she wants to.

“I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now,” she murmurs at you. “But it’s ok. He went out like he wanted to.”

You bury your face deeper into her, probably ruining her top with blood and tears. “I… I don’t care…! But I do, but I… Oh Porrim, why couldn’t you tell me? I thought I would be help,” a wracking sob, “helping people.”

“You heard him, Kanaya. You did help.” She strokes your back, murmurs into your ear. “You did everything he and his people asked for, and more. You helped him move on. That was you, right? The light?”

“Oh god, I…I killed him. I-”

“You _helped_ him. He asked to go.”

“I don’t care! I didn’t _mean_ to, I just, I just lost it. I tried so hard not to hurt any of them, to be what they needed.”

“You didn’t hurt him, Kanaya. You saved him from more pain.”

“I can’t do this, Aradia, I’m not ready, I can’t be, Porrim made a mistake, I’m _too young_.”

She is quiet a while. And then, as if realizing something for the first time, she asks softly,

“How old are you, Kanaya?”

You hiccup and tighten your eyes, squeezing more tears out. “Twenty. I’m twenty years old.”

Her fingers tighten in your shirt and she pulls you up and close to her, enfolding your slimness in a hug that swallows you up, almost makes you feel ok again. She is, for a moment, your mother, your lover, your matron, your everything. 

“Sorry,” she whispers. A voice of experience, breaking at your lack. “I am so, so sorry.”

She cries with you as the sun goes down, until you are the brightest thing under heaven and until even you finally dim.

* * *

You are both quiet on the drive back to camp. You are almost a shell and walk hollowly to your tent, while Aradia fends off too-curious members of her staff. She disappears when you slip into your tent, but returns with bread and soup.

“I… don’t know what it is you live on, but I saw you eat last night, so I…”

Your still-aching heart goes out to her. You have been incredibly unfair to her, to subject her to this. You say so, weakly, even as you thank her for the food and take it. She laughs, shakily.

“Yeah, this is a real Weltanchauungs shift, as the Germans say! Whoo…”

You smile. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s… you… heh. What do I say to the crying vampire girl in one of my tents?”

A sip of soup. A shrug, helpless. Empty. You stare into the bowl. It’s good soup. You know, distantly, that you’re slipping away from yourself, and Aradia must feel it too, because her next question centers you.

“So what happens now?”

You blink at her.

“Kanaya, you hired me to translate for you when you went to meet a secret group of vampires. What on earth are you going to do with me.”

“Technically,” you say, “I hired you to guide me to the caves. You chose to come with me.”

She cracks a small grin at that and rolls her eyes. “Technically, sure. But don’t tell me you didn’t have a plan.”

“Honestly? I assumed that I would have to descend alone, that any rational soul would leave me to the darkness and that the problem would solve itself, while causing me a great many more. This is, after all, the way my life seems to work.”

“Oh, Kanaya…”

Another sip. “But yes, I did have a plan.”

She watches you chew a bit of bread and drink some more soup, motions mechanical. You put them aside and try to compose yourself

“You are not going to ask what it was? If you are safe?”

“Kanaya, the woman I held last night, the woman I held in the foothills tonight… I don’t know what you intended for me, but I don’t think I will ever be in danger around you.”

And for a second time tonight, your heart breaks. This one is quieter, less bloody and just leaves you tearing up, and swaying. She catches you, follows you down onto your sleeping bag. Your tears flow freely, so glad that you have been so lucky on this trip as miserable as it has been. You cup her face and kiss her brow.

“Thank you,” you whisper, your eyes closing to sleep.

“I can stay if-”

“Please,” you answer.

* * *

In the morning, she is gone. You raise your head from her pillow, your curly hair everywhere. The movement upsets a book laid on your stomach, and you lift it. A smile quirks at your lips. That silly vampire novel she was reading. Idly, you wonder if it is out of actual enjoyment, or some perverse humour.

There is a note stuck in it.

Dear Aradia,

You frown, and tuck the note back into it. You roll forward and exit the tent in one smooth motion. Asking around, the crew has not seen any her. It is barely five in the morning and she is gone. No vehicles taken, no tracks at all. Vanished into thin air. Like a ghost. _No,_ you think. _Not at all like a ghost._

* * *

Dear Aradia,

I Do Mean That. You Will Forever More Be Dear To Me.

You Asked Me Last Night What My Plans For You Were, And When You Showed Such Trust In Me, I Could Barely Contain Myself For What I Was Going To Do. I Told You That I Would Never Drink From One Who Did Not Consent, And That Is True. But Consent Is A Thing Easily Given, Especially When One Is Entwined With A Vampire. You Would Gladly Have Let Me Drink From You, Had We Shared Another Night In Each Other’s Arms. And I Would Have Done So Eagerly, If Only To Cover My Tracks. You See, When You Experience The Blood Loss And Anaesthetic Aphrodisiac That I Would Have Produced Your Memories Become… Malleable Things. I Would Have Made Love To You And Drunk From You Until You Could Barely Remember The Caves. And I Would Have Convinced You That Nothing Special Had Happened. I Would Have Done All This Gladly.

And Then I Would Have Left.

But Now, After Last Night I Find I Do Not Have The Stomach For This Plot. When You Showed Me Such Trust, Such Compassion, I Could Not Go Through With It. I Certainly Could Not Go Through With It In My Current State Of Sorrow, Self-loathing, And Quite Frankly Rank Cowardice. So Here You Are. An Explanation Of My Devious Plans For You.

I Must Leave Now, If Only Because If I Stayed I Would Surely Commit To A Variety Of Very Foolish Things. But Also Because Yeprem Was Right. I Have A Duty. Others, Many Others, Depend Upon Me. But I Will Never Forget That For Scant Days You Let Me Depend Upon You.

You Were There For Me When I Left My Innocence In The Caverns Of The Dreaming Dead.

Ever Yours,  
Kanaya Maryam,  
The Dolorosa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry.


	2. Research/Worship Materials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is it like to have an alien being inside your mind, occupying a space they literally carved out at your behest? Roxy and Roux share a body in their quest to see the terms of their contract fulfilled and they have to live with one another, constantly. They both have needs. They differ, but from time to time, they coincide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place at a largely indeterminate point in the timeline can be read any time following The House of Night and Noon.

She is terrifying.

Her mind, her entire being works on a level you are only beginning to understand. Saying that she thinks at lightspeed is invalid because the speed of light is simply irrelevant where her thoughts are from. The idea of the speed of thought is a human conceit, but the angel is a living embodiment of that concept. She is thought unbound, a consciousness of energy, a sliver of her strange dimension, processes divorced from morality. A predatory emissary, here to ensure that ancient enemies don't get the better of the Host. But that's not why she is terrifying. 

You don't even know if it is a she, really. But the creature that now answers to Roux, the creature living in the dead spaces of your brain responds to that pronoun. You think maybe it's because of some kind of psychological bleed over, a kind of psychic osmosis. And that, right there, is why she is terrifying. Because even if you're not sure if you're affecting her, you sure as hell know you're being affected by her.

And there's barely anything you can do about it. You let her in, willingly. You needed her to save your daughter, who didn't want saving. And now there's a thing in your brain, in your mind that feels like it is eating away at you, even if it/she denies it. There's an electric presence crackling at the back of your mind and it always feels like its one micron from exploding into a psychic storm that will consume your mind. The paranoia makes you _so tired_.

The only time you feel alive anymore is when you're tapping into it. 

Alcohol dulls the paranoia, the fear, but it puts you asleep and that's when _she_ takes over. You barely dream anymore. No, the only thing that makes you feel alive, that really _wakes you up_ is the expansion of your consciousness, of your thought processes when you tap that well of power. You thank gods that don't exist that it's not addictive. Because then you'd really have a problem. You already need her for the higher-level mathematics and dimensional physics calculations. You don't need her like you need a nightcap.

But every time you let her speed your mind up, every time you reach for that impossible frontier of spatial abuse that you are determined to inflict upon this universe and a couple others, you go a little bit... mad. Cackling. Reason falls away like handcuffs after a coy night and there is only the joy of despoiling physics. Thought processes divorced from morality.

You're worried you're starting to need that. Not from addiction, but for survival. Your research is not remotely moral anymore. Case in point: your trip to Watertown.

* * *

You leave the mansion at speed, your afternoon of pseudotherapeutic carefree dicking around on the WiiU ruined because some damned customs officers can't calculate tariffs right. But at the end of the day, tariffs aren't going to be your problem if they decide on an inspection as well. Your forced good humour vanishes as you finish yelling over your shoulder at Sollux to pick up where you left off. Once in the car, you floor the gas in the convertible and leave the grounds in a cloud of smoke and dust.

Speeding down New York backroads was a thrill-seeking habit that left you after grad-school, around the time of having Rose. Responsibility, or some pathetic facsimile thereof, told you it wasn't such a good idea. But now your little girl can take care of herself _oh can she ever_ and there's no harm in indulging in a little speed. Especially when it, ah, excites a newly "awoken" angel.

_Good morning, Roxy._

"It's like, two in the afternoon, dude."

_Yes well, I had such a lovely evening, I thought I'd relive it._

"What, like dreaming?"

_A sufficiently accurate parallel, I suppose._

"Oh that is _so_ not fair."

_Hmm?_

"You get to dream and I don't."

_It is an unfortunate side-effect of our arrangement, I'll grant. But so long as your brain still experiences the recuperative procedures that I've substituted, what do you care?_

"You're a loooong way from understanding humans, Roux."

_And thank dead gods for that. Though I suppose... I could teach you the technique for my parallel._

"What, alien-angel-thingy dreaming?"

A flicker of irritation from her, a flicker of smugness from you. _Yes, that._

"What's the catch?"

_Why, no catch, my dear. It is merely an extremely lucid meditative state that you would enter into-_

"That you could take over during. Yeah, pass." You'd say you were getting good at determining Roux's tricks, but the truth of the matter was she was pretty transparent.

_You wound me._

"Shut up and enjoy the ride."

One of the earliest things you learned about Roux was that she rather enjoyed the physical sensations of being a mortal. Alien things to her, adrenaline, endorphins, the whole chemical cocktail of the human nervous system was like a cabinet full of new and exciting recreational drugs. Part of why she takes over night after night, you expect. You've had a lifetime to get used to them and you still have to admit that taking a corner too fast, feeling the rear of the car swing out, feeling the g-forces pull against you is a pretty breathtaking experience. You can't imagine what it would be like for a creature of pure thought.

But eventually Roux has to wonder why you're out here and then...

_Oh dear, problems with the authorities._

"Not yet."

 _I trust you have a plan for this._ She knows you do. You know she knows you do. She knows you know she knows you do so you have no fucking idea why she keeps up this farce of polite conversation.

"I thought I'd throw money at the problem until it went away."

_Bribes? Scandalous!_

"I meant pay the frickin' tariffs."

_Truly, you are no fun, Roxy Lalonde._

"Yeah I want, like, nothing of what you consider fun."

"Lies." She seems to hiss in your ear, a sharp departure from the usual formation of thoughts not your own in your mind. So sharp and so like your own voice, you jerk in surprise and the wheel goes with. In seconds you're almost part of a sports car calzone, but lightning courses through your veins and your wrists twitch just so. And just like that, you're back on the road, not headed into the ditch and there's a laughing, uppity bitch in your head.

"Just for that I'm pulling an all-nighter."

* * *

The customs officer is a stodgy, overweight man with a look on his face like he's eaten a salted lemon. It quickly becomes apparent that neither bulling your way through or flirting up a storm is going to get your equipment released and that he is going to take exceptional pleasure in drawing out your payment and wasting your time. Asshole.

You just want to pay and have the damn goods transferred to your lab already. It's not like they're time-sensitive but... well, they can be. You sign off on the extra paperwork detailing your understanding of new tariffs and charges and you have to suppress the desire to roll your eyes. When it comes time to actually pay, your credit card nearly flies from your purse in your haste to get this over with. The piece of black plastic glitters in the fading sun as the uniformed cashier processes it.

Darkness is beginning to creep into the world in one part of the sky when you're done. But the odious little man is still there and he says the one thing you didn't want to hear.

"Now, just one inspection and we'll be done here."

You manage to maintain your look of "Really? Really?!" and not give away the mega-unease you're feeling. Previously your shipments had come through without even a cursory look over, your university's credentials enough to get them waved through. Now what?

The officer gestures for the truck driver to open the rear doors and you swallow hard.

_Oh dear Roxy, don't worry. We have... options here if things go... pear-shaped?_

A tingle of bioelectricity creeps down your spine, through your vertebrae. You shiver at the alien feeling and reply 

_Like hell. I don't need a scene that'll bring Homeland Security down on my ass._

_We shall see._

The door swings open and your small group is presented with a wall of long, cardboard boxes. You could fit two coffins a piece in each.The squat little man hauls himself up into the compartment with a grunt of effort and slits the top of one open.

"Careful there, gawd," you say, irritatedly. The officer shoots you a superior look as he rips the box lid up. He looks into the pile of packing styrofoam and rummages about until he has cleared a massive arc of metal, inset with slick carbon rollers.

"And this is the..."

"Part of the rotator housing," you say, cooly. Alright, cool, all of these in front will be the assemblage. "The rest of it's all around you."

"Pretty big piece of gear."

"Yup," you deadpan.

He looks around, peering at the shipping codes and comparing them to the one on the box. You expect he doesn't have the spacial awareness to notice that just these at visible will be enough to make a full circle. There's no reason to go looking deeper.

_Unless he wants to make your day truly unpleasant._

_Don't give him any ideas._

_Oh, so now he's psychic as well as a pain in the ass?_

_Just shut up, gawd._

Then with a grunt the little shit clambers down from the rear of the truck and gestures that it can be shut. You glare at him and climb up yourself, much more smoothly despite the heels. You stuff loose packing into the box and fold the slit cardboard top together before. There's a tape gun on a hook on a wall of the truck and you use it to secure the damn box before hopping back down and slamming the doors shut. You stalk irritatedly back to the convertible as the truck driver shrugs in sympathy.

_Bastard probably just wanted to give someone a hard time._

_Oh are you talking to me? I wasn't aware that you were in the habit._

Neither were you.

* * *

* * *

She is terrifying.

Her mind, her entire nervous system works in ways revoltingly alien to you, or at least in ways that were revolting years ago. You made your home in her mind in a geyser of blood and expunged brain matter, the dimensional shift that brought you here having a catastrophic effect on her mind. In a way, it was like making room for you, despite the fact that you only exist as energy, thought and impressions. Still, it was every bit as disgusting an entry into the world as these humans make.

Your job here was to contain the threat of the Lalondes, their inevitable alliance with the old enemy. You had very nearly failed, in the face of a mother's love for her child and the towering wrath of the horrorterror once known as Rose Lalonde. That alone had been terrifying enough, but then there was Roxy's solid, sure willingness to sacrifice herself for her daughter. And you along with her. Those bare moments in the Furthest Ring set the tone for your time here. 

Oh, to be sure you'd managed to secure some... concessions from the horrorterror so that your mission was not an outright failure, but you sensed a distinct impression of displeasure from the Host, distant and in another dimension as they were. But what in the name of the Word did they expect, sending their youngest, their most expendable? In retrospect, you think the deal you struck was quite clever. Many humans still clung to debased versions of the texts that had been dictated to them millennia ago, texts that had wiped the worship of the eldritch virtually from the face of the planet. Now, with a new text garnering praise for the both the Host and the Noble Circle, the Host would naturally maintain an advantage.

Still, your mission continues. Stuck in the primitive mind of a mortal woman who grasps at concepts far beyond her and even further beyond the reach of humanity. But the leaps her mind makes in pursuit of safe dimensional transportation! You will be figuratively leading her by the hand for days and then suddenly she will be so far ahead that you feel a sort of mental whiplash as you try to track her logic and progression. Often, there is none and you blitz through calculations to understand how she has arrived at a concept. The calculations lead you to parts of physics and this reality that should not exist or should not be exposed to thinking minds.

Worrying. But not terrifying.

No, terrifying is that you are beginning _to enjoy yourself_. And as much as it is her fault, it is also yours.

* * *

Your time in her mind is largely drudgery, applying intellect and power to augment her own thought processes. Drudgery surrounded by confusion as you are forced to experience the biochemical chaos of a human body with her. You are bombarded by fear, frustration, love, adrenaline, lust and half a dozen other emotions you have words for, concepts of, but with which you have no _physical experience_. It is disorienting to say the least. The first time you feel fear, when Roxy thinks that Rose has not made it back from the Furthest Ring, you have no idea how she doesn't vomit, expel all her insides.

The first time you feel adrenaline, in a slip on the balcony overlooking the falls, you were doomed. It was almost as good as praise, a sliver of worship.

You will not revisit your impressions of love.

Though much of your time is drudgery, those spikes of emotion are... problematic. It takes a while for you to erect yourself a sort fortress in her mind where you can take refuge while adjusting. A buffer zone as you acclimatize to the excesses of mortality. But slowly, you manage, become comfortable in her mind.

You cannot let her know of your state of course, and keep a running, sarcastic commentary of her going, a course of mockery and teasing. Blatant shows of superiority, mental acrobatics and the impression that you dominate in her own mind. Lies, the foremost weapons of your kind.

And when she sleeps, you emerge, test your understanding, endurance and control. The first time you surface, you simply shift her clumsily in her bed, basking in the subtle shift of sensation from warmed satin to cool air. The play of her/your own hair across her/your face, gossamer strands that whisper soft across your shared skin. A reflexive shudder, a groan loosed from a slender throat. The sound of it is debauched and you suddenly feel _filthy_. 

But alive.

_Mortal._

* * *

The day after your first steps in her technically asleep body, you go to her with a proposition. The night previous had been an embarrassing, stumbling thing wherein you'd fallen a half-dozen times on her ass or side. Pain. Delicious in its own way, a stinging heat flushing through you. You clamped your shared mouth shut to hold in the yelps. Eventually, you let go of your control and let muscle memory take over, balancing you through steps. A strange feeling, controlling a body without any real input. Just to the washroom you went and though the lights stung your maladjusted eyes, you could see the ruin of burst vessels in her eyes. The sign of your passing. Stigmata, wrought small.

The day after, you interrupt her studies.

_I think I would like to see more of your world._

"Good for you. Nice to have goals. But I'm not going anywhere until this whole deal is dealt with."

_Quite fair, quite fair. You have your commitments and I'm not suggesting you abandon them._

"Yeah, then what?" Suspicion fills the recess of her mind.

_You spend hours asleep each night to recuperate and save your memories. Whilst you sleep, I could easily wander about in your body and-_

"So _that's_ why my side was sore this morning. You're hijacking me at night!"

_Hardly hijacking. Please, you needn't overreact. It is at worst... joy riding?_

"Yeah and cars get wrecked while joy riding."

_I would never allow injury to come to this body. I couldn't exist on this plane without it, after all. Come now, Roxy, be reasonable. I am going quite mad in here without sufficient exposure._

A disbelieving snort. "Why even bother to ask permission? You can clearly do this whenever you want."

_I would like to be a polite guest._

"Yeah? Think you can lay off the smack talk?"

_If that will secure your permission, absolutely._

"Huh." Roxy chews the inside of her cheek while looking over a diagram she only half-registers. "What would you do?"

_Go out, experience the world. Perhaps go into town, see its denizens._

"Yeah, and make everyone think I'm completely looney with stupid questions."

_I am hardly an idiot and I have access to most of your stores of information. Besides, you are a scientist who lives on a hill with an observatory. I'm sure they all think you are "looney" anyways._

"Heh, yeah, point." A pause. "Isn't this going to affect me?"

_I don't see why it would. You are a fit woman and I won't be running marathons. Your brain enters into its recuperative state independently of your body._

"What about dreaming?"

_Roxy, when was the last time you dreamed?_

Silence greets your sideways acknowledgement of what she has suspected for quite a while.

"How? Why?"

_There is too much going on in your mind for your brain to handle. I have had to... re-wire portions of your brain to allow you to function at this scale. Instead of dreaming, I put you into a similar state that allows your brain to sort itself out. But I cannot make you dream._

"The fuck did you do to me?" she whispers.

 _You know what you did,_ you reply coldly and replay a memory. Her on all fours, dripping blood and grey matter from all of her facial orifices. 

She sighs and slumps her shoulders. "Sure, whatever. Not like I could stop you anyways, you're already doing this. But check it - no driving. Get a friggin' cab or whatever."

_Excellent. Now-_

"Also, I'm telling Rose. She's a night person and she can help if you fuck up somehow."

A mental sneer. _Fine, tell your invalid of a daughter. Why not antagonize a horrorterror more?_

"Why not, indeed? Now, fucking help me with this drawing already."

* * *

She slumbers and you rise, uncertain at first and then with growing confidence as you _let_ this body react to your will. There is a lesson here, you're certain. As it walks around the room, you consider what it is you want to do tonight. Go into Rainbow Falls, you'd said. But then what?

 _Why am I doing this?_ is a better question.

Because you are bored. Because the promise of that excitement skitters across nerve endings now that you are in control. Because you are becoming interested in mortals.

The cab arrives and you slide into it, white shoes, white dress, red lips. You order it into town and the driver nods.

"Anywhere in particular, lady?"

"Wherever is... popular."

The night passes in a darkened blur, whipping past the conditioned car too fast for nearly anyone to make anything of it. But you focus, taking minute control over the muscles in this body's eyes and tweak the lenses, play fast and loose with the extraoculars until - _there_ \- a tree blasted apart by lightning - _there_ \- a sign graffitied by children - _there_ \- a family of deer, wide eyed in the depths of the forest.

It passes the time well, even as it aches your face. Her face. The face of this body, its face. You frown and try to sort out the appropriate pronouns. Cutting through your confusion is the cabbie's voice, announcing your arrival. And what an arrival it... isn't. The streets are bare and what lights dance inside the building he's dropped you at are disappointingly muted.

Well. This is Rainbow Falls, not New York City.

Inside is not much better. Lights flash desultorily as they try to liven up a largely empty space. Concrete floor, with some kind of plastic space in the middle. You make for the bar at the far end, that being familiar enough. The waif behind the counter gives a small smile and asks,

"What're ya having?"

"Vodka Martini," you respond, going with what you know from Roxy's binges. 

"Sure thing," she says and sets to work. You watch her practiced motions, and wonder if you could coax Roxy's limbs into that sort of coordination. After all, she is such a lush that you expect that making a martini is muscle memory by now.

"Rather...dead in here, isn't it?"

"Well, it's a Wednesday, what do you expect?"

"Ah. Fair enough," you note. "When does it get busier?"

"Weekends, some Mondays. Occasionally we get parties down from the university." She shrugs and decants the martini into a glass and slides it towards you.

You pay her and take a sip. A wince. The burning sensation is worse that when Roxy makes it, but it has more flavour. It is... more bitter? You smack your lips, unsure if you like it. You think to yourself this evening might be a wash and that you will try back some other time. But then a young man approaches.

"Hey," he begins, awkwardly. He can't be much older than Roxy's darkspawn of a daughter, though his colour is better. You can feel the interest coming off him, along with nerves and just a touch of fear. Mmm. 

"Hello," you reply.

"I'm Justin," he says, thrusting out a hand. There is a squawk of suppressed laughter off in a corner and a gaggle of boys and girls try to hush themselves. The hapless youth in front of you blushes fiercely and almost drops his hand but you catch it up and shake it lightly.

"Hello, Justin. Don't mind them, they're merely jealous."

"Jealous?" he asks, relaxing a touch.

"Of course. They're over there and you're here, with me." You take a step closer and watch his reaction. Nerves jump and his pulse races. Eyes widen on you and you drink in the attention. Delicious. "Where would you rather be?"

"Um, here. By a long shot."

"Good. Now buy me a drink."

As he obeys without question, a smile curls the lips of your host.

* * *

You take him home, or let him take you to his home, and make him worship you. On his knees, on his back, with your various limbs wrapped around him, claiming him. His flesh against and within that of your host is but the simplest ecstasy, the base veneer of his worship. Oh the pleasure is sinfully excellent, you cannot deny that. Sure, you shiver and shudder at his fumbling ministrations, coming against him in time. But what drives you on is pinning him, dominating him, making him beg for your permission. You make him declare his need, that you are the only one who can fulfill it.

You draw out his praise of you and milk it for all you are worth. Then you discard him like you will so many others.

You are the least of the Host but here, you are the only one being worshiped. Your being swells under the attention.

* * *

"Oh my fuck, what did you get up to last night?"

_Is the hangover too much? I thought I was quite restrained compared to y-_

"Fuck the hangover, why I am sore as _hell_ you fucking skank?"

* * *

Weeks, months go by and you repeat the pattern, across Rainbow Falls and then further abroad once you master driving. Men and women bow before you, kissing your feet, often quite literally. You become intimately familiar with the curves of Roxy's body and the depraved chemical compulsions of human beings. You learn how to bend them to your will even as your control over Roxy's form surpasses her own. You can't blame her, really. She is only mortal and while mind-achingly brilliant, she has never been of the disposition to turn that gaze inwards. 

As a thank you for the use of her body, you purge the toxins and microbes of your evenings before turning control over in her bed. She should have the option to ruin herself, after all.

"She is not ruining her body, you are."

The words cause you start, an invasion of your mental privacy. In the manner of ephemeral beings of non-matter, you identify the trespasser before you identify the speaker. Rose glares at you from the doorway to her room. A pale, shrunken thing, much diminished physically. But otherwise... her presence in the hall is a towering wave, always poised to crash against the shore of reality, an abyssal, implacable force of corruption and entropy. 

Your lips curl in a sneer, "Nonsense, dear Rose, I take better care of her body than she does."

In a blink, the filth has crossed the intervening space and is pressing you against the wall. You can feel slick, cool appendages curl around wrists and ankles, holding you in place. Looking down, there is nothing there. The sheer force of her presence holds you in place and makes even your evolved hallucinate the very bindings holding you down. You shudder in disgust at the things that aren't really there, even as another curls about your neck to cup your chin.

"I can see it in her eyes. Red, bloodshot things. The pressure of you in her brain is killing her."

"I am what is keeping her alive!" you hiss back, trying to fight back against the mounting fear. You have to shove emotions aside, retreat into your fortress. This thing evokes feelings from both Roxy and you that will undo you. "Do you know what she did to bring you back? Do you want to know how she begged for the power she can now call upon at will? This is simply her extending due courtesy to a _guest_."

"You are not a guest. You are a parasite."

"And you are a tumour on this reality and all others," you spit, leveraging racial hatred that you've kept quelled for months. "When we cast your kind to the furthest reaches of the Multiplicity, severed your influence from this plane, we were doing it a _favour_."

"You were acting in your own self-interest. Survival. You subsist on the same spiritual adoration we do. Hence your precious Books."

You begin to answer, but she silences you, the thing not there about your neck jamming itself into your mouth, dripping non-corporeal defilement down your throat. You convulse, gagging, in psychosomatic reaction. 

"And what is this _we_? I may be gone from the Noble Circle, but I still Know things. You are so very young, not yet conceived when Asaph scribbled in the dust."

 _Older than you_ , you manage pettily while trying not to vomit.

"Hmm, perhaps. But you are such... orthodox creatures. How can you understand the experiences of something born of non-linear time?"

_Then how can you understand ours?_

"A point. But perhaps I understand you better than you think. Apart from your peers. Finally set free. RE-integration into their body quite likely impossible." She gives a stony, bemused smile, even as you go cold at the thought. "A red-headed stepchild now."

She drags a fingernail like a claw down your cheek and across your jaw, before retreating. You are suddenly free, coughing, gagging. Thick saliva gathers in your mouth and you force it down before you drooling, or hurl. Wan rays of grey light begin to filter through the high, arching windows, outlining your prone, shuddering form and beginning their futile battle against the shadows.

" _Roux,_ " the dawning world seems to sneer. But of course it is not the world, nor the dawn naming you.

* * *

* * *

At some point, you spring this on her:

"I want to ride shotgun the next time you go out."

You can feel the angel freeze, mentally.

"What? Can't I take an interest in what you're doing with my body?"

 _I could always show you how to access those memories,_ Roux says.

"Yeah, but I want to be there. See it for myself."

_You won't really be seeing it. It would be like sitting in the rear seat of a car, watching someone else drive._

"Cool. Still wanna see it."

_Can I not have this time to myself?_

"Can't I?" you return, your tone challenging. "You are ALWAYS up in my business-"

_Not always. I... retreat sometimes._

"Yeah? It'd be nice if you could tell me when that is. Girl has needs, you know."

 _I am aware._ That sounded remarkably embarrassed. _It was not!_

"Yeah, now I am definitely coming."

* * *

Ok, so she was right, this is hella strange. Watching Roux move your body is bizarre. It is like being distanced from all the sensations and input. You're not _seeing_ but you know what it is that she sees. You don't _feel_ but you know what she is feeling. And there is no lag, the impressions coming as the actions are taken. Roux walks and you know when a foot touches down, know when the clack of a heel sounds through the hall. You _know_ she walks almost exactly like you, but more languid, like there's all the time in the world. The familiar seen through the lens of another's mind, felt through the nerves of another.

Emotions are another thing. Hazy, washed out ideas, but things that still affect you. Maybe the biochemical reactions are easier to appreciate, housed as you are in a section of your brain. You understand now a bit of why she wanted to walk around, experience things. This is a pretty dim, flat existence.

About the time she slips into the cab, you realize you can't remember when you last called her "it."

The bar she goes to, takes you to, is a new place in Rainbow Falls, higher class than what you've come to expect from the town. Still, Roux seems to know her way around it, makes for the bar without hesitation. You're trying to gain a better understanding of the way you experience the world around you like this, so you miss what she orders. But whatever it is, it is bright and colourful, a rainbow riot in a glass. As it goes down, Roux shivers slightly, a sensation that pairs well with the cool tingling numbness of the liquid.

It's pretty weird, analyzing this stuff from inside your own head, especially the drinking. There's no itch for it to scratch, no shameful, insidious need it fills. You wonder how your addiction affects Roux, whether she feels it at all. Whether you've sat, sagging and sodden some nights oblivious to the possibility of this control. You want to be angry at her, but right now you can't muster it. Something to think about, laters.

Roux handles herself well, dancing with men and women, curling them all around her finger effortlessly, wrangling drinks and compliments out of them like she was born to it. In the depths of your own head, you can virtually feel the narcissistic glow of the angel basking in all this. Women and their needs, huh. They vary in ages, but they all respond to Roux's attention -no, her presence- the same. With eagerness and a kind of adoration. It's vaguely creepy. And you're not sure the vagary comes from your conscious distance.

Late in the night, when you're glistening with sweat and slightly out of breath, a man approaches. He's closer to your age, maybe a bit older. Pulls off the greying temples real well. You approve, and can sense Roux's bemusement at that. You roll your eyes, mentally. He buys Roux a drink, a classic martini and she drinks it up, with his attentions. You're distant enough to note the little things. The openness of his stance, the little touches he makes on bare skin, the lingering looks. Clinically, you assemble his your diagnosis. Dude wants you bad.

Roux swallows a laugh and let's you know, _Thank you, I'd noticed._

_So what, you're going to move in for the kill?_

_No, but I think he will._

He hands Roux another drink, commenting on how well she's holding her liquor. The angel flashes a bright smile and takes the cloudy pink thing, downing half of it at a go. She never seems particular about the drinks and takes them with as much gusto as you would. You're a terrible influence, you think wryly.

_Ah, and there it is._

_What?_

_The drink, it was far too bitter. My faculties will be compromised in short order._

A pause, then, _He ROOFIED us? What the hell?! And you knew? And let it happen? I can't believe you'd let him roofie us! Why the HELL would he do that? You were eating out of the palm of his hand!_

_For some, it isn't about the intimacy, but he power over others._

You feel a welling of disgust, an emotion so strong and pure it can't be coming from the angel, or your body. It's yours, in this disassociated consciousness. It seems that you can actually feel in this state.

_I would not call that an emotion, or at least not associate it with what you're used to feeling as a mortal. In a consciousness as pure as yours, as mine is usually, such reactions are very different, and much rarer._

_Well, it's good to know at least one of us is fucking disgusted by this shit._

Roux is silent in your shared headspace for a while, during which she natters on with your would-be rapist, giving the impression of complete obliviousness. 

_I am quite repulsed by this insect, Roxy. Despite our apparent callousness, the Host is a stringently moral collective. At times our morals do not match humanity's, but I would hope that your experience in my place is evidence that we can decry at least some of the same things._

_Yeah? So what are you going to be doing about this?_

_Me? I told you, I'm going to be compromised shortly. Unless you would like to trade places, and endure this filth._

_What the hell, Roux?!_

_Oh calm down. You are effectively in the back end of your own nervous system. You can figure something out. Unless you don't think you're up to it._

You suddenly wish you'd taken her up on those memory-replaying lessons. Maybe then you'd be able to figure out how the hell she cancels out alcohol and crap.

* * *

Less than half an hour later, the douchebag is half-carrying your body to his car, where he unceremoniously dumps you in the passenger seat. Roux is delirious and just as disassociated from your body as you are, except far less coherent or controlled. In this walled-off section of your mind, you're safe from what she's feeling for the moment. But you are aware of her fear.

You're figuring out the fine control of your internal systems this "back-end" affords you, but you've still got a ways to go. The asshole starts up the car and pulls away from the bar and you swear up a storm. The liver, you've got to figure out how to kick the liver into overdrive. That's what will get you out of this jam. Tweaks of nerves here, several dozen signals on a loop here and you think you've got your liver working at one hundred percent.

You're aware, suddenly, of the douche's hand on your, on Roux's thigh. The angel moans and moves to close her leg, but his grip is sure. He forces her leg apart, cooing something and strokes the inside of her thigh. Your thigh. A space, part of you shared with the alien angel in your head, who is currently dazed and groggy because of a chemical poison ruining your nervous system.

The rage that suddenly overtakes you is so sudden and pure you’re shocked by it. You fire another batch of signals, this time aimed at your heart. As its pace picks up, rushing your blood through your veins, to your brain, to your liver, you realize that this is much like coding. You are, effectively, hacking your body through the biocomputer that is your brain. The parts of it still working. 

Roux flushes, warms up, from the process and the thing in the seat next to you makes an approving noise. Death’d be too good for him. Oh no, you’re not going to kill him. You’re aware of blood roaring through Roux’s ears and you _know_ that a headache is building for her. Dehydration, the aftereffects of too much alcohol. Or a roofie. It sucks, but she’ll suffer through it. Or you will. 

You’re aware of her coming around, focusing, making a conscious effort to remain limp and pliant. You’re still on the road after all.

_Roux, switch up. Get back here._

_Hmm. You’ve done well enough back there. What say you to me dealing with this excrement?_

_I say get back here. I’m better at dealing with a pounding hangover and it’s_ my _body first and foremost._

A mental sigh, and with a sensation much like going down a really short, fast slide, you’re welcome back into control of your body with pulsating, velvet-wrapped jackhammer in your head and the taste of dead cells and stale vomit in your mouth. You guess Roux held down some at some point. You don’t blame her.

The car pulls into a gravel driveway and at the top of it is a large house, shadowed in the night and by the security light that comes on as you approach. The creep gets out, goes around the car to pull you out and you don’t resist. A clammy hand pulls at your arm and you go limp, heavy. He swears and gets your arm around his shoulder and hauls you out. You stumble, then get your feet planted, ready. 

He slams the door shut. Your heel goes into the back of his knee. He stumbles forward.

You slam his head off the door.

* * *

The drive back to your house is mostly quiet, neither you nor Roux attempting conversation. There’s not really any need for it. You both know what you’re going to do. The ride is only mostly quiet, because towards the end, there’s a pounding coming from the trunk. You swerve violently a couple of times to get the point across, slamming the body around.

Then you’re pulling into _your_ driveway, making for the loading dock at the base of the observatory. As you put the car in park, you tell Roux, _I could use some help with this._

 _Happily given_ , she replies and slips, slides forwards to co-occupy your controlling consciousness. The pressure in your mind is immense and you feel an almost-familiar trickle from your nose, and from one eye. You blink and the vision in that eye washes over in pink as you blink away the blood tear. 

There’s a metallic thunk as the trunk lid pops from the inside and the douchebag leaps out, gripping a tire iron and looking around manically. He sees you from the corner of his eye, a white figure in the dark and he spins, raising the piece of metal. Then he sees you properly and his eyes go wide.

What does he see? A woman, eyes bloodshot and bleeding, glaring at him from hooded eyes, hair blown stringily across face? A white wraith, stalking forwards - _clack-crunch, clack-crunch_ \- pace languid, murderous? Whatever it is, he takes a step back in terror, trembling. Then he swallows, screams and rushes you, swinging wildly with the iron.

You catch his wrists and put a sharp heel into his knee again, stopping him cold with a snap. With straining strength that is not yours, you force his arms apart, crunching into his wrists. The tire iron drops with a metallic clang and he whimpers. You force him prostrate, glaring, looming over him and dripping lifeblood onto his face. He pisses himself in terror, the stink of it reaching your over-sensitive nostrils.

“Oh god, oh god, what ar-”

“Shut _Silence_ up _filth_ ,” the voices tear out of your throat, your vocal chords working in a complicated flutter you can feel like gargling air.

“Oh please, don’t kill me, do-”

“Oh, I’m _Or perhaps_ not going _speak up_ to kill you. I _We_ need _want you_ you for _to beg_ some things.”

“What? I don’t… I don’t understand,” he cries, watery tears dripping from his eyes.

“ _ **Beg**_ ,” the pair of you say.

“Please, oh please, don’t kill me, just let me go, oh god you’re hurting me, oh god, please let me go, fuck, please, I’m begging you.”

You lean in close, “ _The closest thing to your god here is me you degenerate and guess how many Commandments you’ve violated._ ”

Roux’s power, that blinding white light that speeds your thoughts to impossible places, waxes full behind your eyes and they shed that horrific pink light. The light shining through your blood, stigma of your body breaking down under forces you can’t withstand. Your would-be rapist’s face is cast in unflattering light, his expression growing more and more terrified and his words more and more incoherent until he is whimpering, snivelling like the animal he is.

“And you’re just so unlucky to fill a need I have.” You flash a cruel smile, lips parting to show bleeding gums and bubbling pink saliva. Like a judge handing down a sentence, invested with the only power that matters, you say “ _ **So, to your plea, together we say, no.**_ ”

Your knee comes up so fast you tear your dress. It cracks into his chin and he goes over backwards, out of your grip. His prone body gets a moment more of your regard before you step over him, grab him by the collar and drag him into the loading bay, into the elevator down to your lab. There, you walk past long, stacked crates to find an open one. The pod inside is empty and you haul the body up into it with some difficulty. Then you slam the lid shut and touch the “Preserve” control.

You stalk upstairs.

* * *

* * *

Water cascades over her, plastering her hair across her brow, washing down her face, washing away the blood dribbled and crusting. The heat of it is a stinging thing, no cold tap in use here. She is searing herself clean, taking a kind of absolution from the scalding pain. In her chest, a suppressed sob, swallowed, held tight within her.

_Roxy…_

“I don’t want to hear it!” she screams, cracking under the weight of her own morality again. It reverberates in the close confines of the bathroom and forces out the sob. With it come the tears, the regret, the shame. What fragile things these mortals be. She goes down on her haunches, gripping knees to breast, crying. You retreat further into your mental fortress, away from the waves of emotions too intense and alien for you. Reduced to watching your host, wasting away inside from her own grief, a sense of terrible powerlessness comes over you.

But eventually, slowly, she rises. What tenacious things, too. The water is turned off, the body is toweled dry and the person is put to bed. slipping naked under soft sheets. You risk a step out of your hideaway, slipping further into the forefront of your shared mind. 

“I’m tired, Roux. I don’t have the energy for this,” she murmurs, barely intelligible.

_I know. You’ve worked so hard, been so strong today._

More terrifying than enjoying your time on this mortal plane is the thought of becoming attached to it. To them. To your host. With a sudden, horrifying clarity, a burst of korvikoum, you realize you will lose yourself here. You will not survive this, any more than she will. The line between Roxy and Roux is slipping. But instead of wondering if it will be gone by the time this all ends, you put your worry to good use and fire neurons.

* * *

* * *

Suddenly warmth enfolds you, the embrace of soft arms. You start in shock and your eyes fly open to see… nothing. No limbs disturb the sheets, no one lies in bed with you. Nothing holds you, but you are hugged tight. A phantom hand brushes through your hair, across your scalp, as a voice so like yours whispers in your ear,

“Relax.”

Oh.

You shut your eyes, and turn your tired, aging body into the embrace. As you do, a leg entwines with yours and you are pulled close. Breath that is not there traces lightly in the crook of your neck. You are suffused with phantasmal tenderness, a descending peace. She may be terrifying, but more terrifying still is how much you are coming to need her. 

You give yourself over to her manipulations and cry.


	3. The Thief of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family can be a bitch, whether it's the one you're born into or the one you choose. When you add horrorterrors to the mix, everything can only get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place after Of The Magus and His Doom and before All Drama Has Its Roots in the Past. But it wouldn't hurt to read the first chapter of Drama.

The outcropping under your feet is still warm from the heat of the day, even if the sun has long since set. It feels good, like you could sun yourself here, if you ever get a free fuckin’ moment to yourself. Just you and your swimsuit, maybe even not that, seeing how empty this area is. You wiggle your toes, webbing and all, along the edge of it, and dig in harder-than-normal nails. Then, with nothing else to do with your life this evening, you throw yourself from the top of the waterfall.

Your form is fucking perfect, and you clear the jutting rocks at the bottom of the falls with ease. A bare second, two seconds of freefall and your slender form knifes into the cold waters of the river with barely a splash. An arching of your back adjusts your trajectory, preventing you from spearing into the riverbed and instead bringing you up near the surface. Your gills open and filter disappointingly tasteless water. Still, could be worse. The river could be full o’ silt. Fucking disgusting.

Under the water, your huge, glassy eyes widen even further until you can see perfectly in your aquatic environs. Bony spines along your… spine jut up and out so you can maneuver more easily in the rushing river. Shit that you have to hide on the daily in man’s world finally gets free, and you shoot down the river like the bullet you are. You splay your fingers wide, using the webbing to _haul_ yourself forward. The acceleration is intoxicating and your kicking feet only add to it. You turn in a roll, spinning through the water and glorying in that, if not a natural habitat, may as well be one. You’ve been deprived, depriving _yourself_ , of this shit so long the ache of it was wearing you down on a physical level. As your mutations come to life, so do you.

Then your nose fills with a scent like _home_ , but different, tinged with the fuckin’ filth of humanity and something else, something worse, and you know you’re getting close. You draw yourself in, still yourself like you were taught as a child, and drift. You slow for a bit, and then slowly pick up speed again as you approach a second waterfall. You’re pulled forward by the speeding current, as if the fucking edge of the goddamn world is calling you.

Your huge eyes finally catch sight of a light and you kick up to the surface. Huge concrete pillars are thrust into the riverbed and you catch a hold of one to stop yourself from going over the edge of the falls. Then, hand-over-clawed-hand, you crawl up its rough surface. Honed and toned muscles pull you up easily, so easily, you glory in your physicality for a bit. Then you’re running out of pillar and so go upside-down, scrabbling along the underside of a platform until you reach the edge of it.

When you pull yourself up and over the edge, the dark of the world is dispelled and you blink, hissing quietly in irritation. A goddamn huge-ass mansion of white stone gleams in the light of the moon, the shifting patterns of the river giving its hard angles and human lines a touch of the natural. Fucking fakers. You sneer a moment and then scuttle along the bridgewalk you’re on, because you’re exposed and that’s fucking stupid.

Water slides from your skin like it was oil as you ghost through the air. As soon as you get into the shadows surrounding the building, you draw your knife from the sheath strapped to your thigh. It’s blackened, but you’re not taking any chances here. Mom told you this one was smart and dangerous and if even she doesn’t give a fuck about your well-being anymore, you sure as hell do. You sniff the air and inhale that strong scent, so like home. You follow it.

A sliding door later, your now-dry form slips into the mansion. The scent of your target is stronger in here and the _otherness_ of it makes your stomach roil and your heart beat faster. For the first time you’re nervous. But that’ll get you killed, so you push it under the focus, flare your nostrils, take in more of the scent and prowl through the room. You follow the scent through a hall, up some stairs, and soon it is almost _right next to you_. You’ll get this shit done, do your family proud and then happily go back to being ignored, being free.

You slip into the open room and suddenly the scent changes. There’s blood, so much blood and death that you reel from its intensity. In a panic you wonder how you missed this, if someone got here before you. That panic prevents you from noticing the pristine room. It blinds you in a way so you don’t notice a stone-cold hand until it closes around your throat and lifts you clear from the floor. You thrash and try to gasp, but nothing you do matters. In a blind fury, you lash at your attacker with your knife. Your first slashes miss somehow, the body suddenly _not there_ and your last is solidly blocked by another hand. As your world goes black, you’re turned toward the figure. Twin fangs and eyes like young jade flash, then nothing.

* * *

“-her blood is cold and thin and most certainly not human.”

“A mutation? _More like a remnant of the last time your daughter’s ilk ruled this world_ Does she need to be submerged, or-”

 

You cough involuntarily at the thought of water, your gills and throat convulsing needily. 

“ _Aha. Our guest awakes._ ” Fuck.

Groggily, you raise your head. A middle-aged woman stands in front of you, staring imperiously down her nose at you. You think for a second that she’s got pink-eye in one eye and then you realize, no, that’s _glowing pink_. The second woman is brown, much younger, and looks faintly anxious. You recognize her as the one that knocked you out and you make a mental note to avoid fucking with that one. It goes with the mental note that you are officially out of your depth.

“Alright, girly,” the older woman says in a completely different tone. “You sneak into my house with a badass but kinda scary-looking dagger, creep around and nearly hurt darling Kanaya here. And you’re obviously not baseline human. What’s your deal?”

“Baseline-?” escapes your mouth before you remember to clam the fuck up, like holy shit what is wrong with you. You fucked up, and now you’re in shit. It’s time for observation, not talking.

“ _Oh come now, you're among friends here. We haven't even tied you up yet!_ ” The woman says again in a gravelly, crackling voice now. The eye pulses in time with the crackles and yeah, wow that is creepy as fuck. You're used to a certain level of weird, given where you're from, but there's what you know is weird because it’s yours and then there's experiencing weird. Experiencing this kind of weird is terrifying.

“She is becoming agitated, Roux, please leave off and let Roxy handle this,” the younger woman murmurs while passing around the older woman to sit beside you. Now that she's moved, you've a clear shot at the door. You consciously avoid looking in that direction, but you were never too good at hiding your intentions.

“I would not blame you if you wanted to run at this point,” the younger woman says, “but we would find you. Truly, we mean you no harm, but we do need to know why you're here and quite probably who sent you.”

You look at her, her fine features and pale eyes and every curve and corner of her says that she is telling the truth, that she really is that compassionate. You immediately distrust her. That kind of compassion is the sign of someone capable of the worst kinds of things. You nearly break out in a sweat at the thought, and dart your gaze to the older woman.

“ _Would you look at that? I believe she's more scared of you than us, Kanaya._ Oh give it a rest Roux. The girl's clearly not going to talk to us like this. We should _what, tell her what she probably already knows?_ do some give and take _we've already given her her freedom now I say we take some information_ -”

And that's about when you bolt. You're proud of the movement, a pure, directed explosion of your muscles. Your world blurs as you make for the door and suddenly you feel like you're moving in two directions. Your lower half keeps moving forward, but you're spinning and that cold iron grip is back, holding on to your wrist. You hit the floor like a fresh catch, and the older woman is reaching for you.

“ _-like so.” Delicate fingers press to your forehead and just before your world goes white, it feels like you can count every one of your nerve endings._

* * *

-leaving the islands, you're-

-hometown where you never did what-

-brand new world where you could-

-a phone call informing you that your little escapade is over, that you'll do what's expected of you or-

-a loving mother who plotted out your entire life down to how you'd give your life in service to-

-a vision, a thing in sickly white, roiling in the depths of the ocean, a dark queen to one day rule the world, but she needs sacrifices and you will bring them, no you will make them, in her name, like hell-

-a plane ticket in your hands, dated two years ago, your hands smaller then, but somehow harder, they hadn't learned to make or to love, only the stab-twist-yank of-

-the blood of weak mankind-

-her blood-

-your mother's eyes-

-the high priestess' eyes-

You scream.

* * *

“What are you doing?!”  
“What are you _we have a problem._ ”

The Kanaya chick is pulling the older woman off you, who is also pulling her arm away from you. You throat hurts and your chest heaves and _what in the name of the deeps have you gotten yourself into_. 

“ _She was sent here to kill Rose. Moreover, she was sent by a people that worship a horrorterror._ I thought the worship had died out? _It is incredibly hard to kill an idea_ and oh, they were so isolated, it probably just barely survived _out on some island_ Polynesian by the looks of her oh that makes sense.”

“Would you two stop already?!” hisses Kanaya, kneeling beside you. “I do not know what inhuman bullshit you just enacted upon her, but it will be the last that goes on under this roof.”

“ _Not your roof, parasicchhhkkk_ Of course Kanaya, I'm sorry I couldn't stop her,” the schitzoid woman says, her voice cutting painfully between her two modes of speech. “If we're lucky, that didn't wake Rosie and we can resolve this without disturbing her rest.”

“Wouldn't that be lovely,” a new voice cuts in. Before you turn, you already know what you're going to see. The corrupted scent of a home you'll never return to is stronger than ever now, all brine and sharp ozone. The voice is like a high-pitched bell in deep water, reaching for your core. Your eyes track against your will, commanded to bear witness to the thing you've come to kill.

A pale thing, wrapped in dark blankets so that barely the face is visible. Eyes so sunken its face might as well be a skull. Lips thin and drawn, and hair hanging limply in disarray. It is so slight it barely makes a sound. But all around it you can almost see reality flinch, unwilling to touch it. The world seems to recoil from this thing you've been sent to kill, this pretender beast.

This young god.

* * *

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are so, so incredibly tired. The weight of your recent actions, recent mistakes wears heavily on you. The future presses in on you, a vague but relentless burden that threatens all you hold dear. You feel the slightness of this mortal form, its fragility, keenly and so the look the strange girl gives you is strangely empowering.

“This ‘recuperation’ nonsense that assembled worthies are intent on shoving down my throat is beginning to wear, particularly in the presence of such an interesting guest.”

The girl is looking up at you with a gaze torn between fear, disdain and… reverence? You let your senses extend slightly and yes, there it is. The feel of true belief, flavoured with reluctant obedience. She knows what you are.

“Report, Roux,” you gesture at her to continue and find a seat, brushing your fingers through Kanaya’s hair in a minute gesture of thanks.

“ _I think there’s a horrorterror on this plane._ ” Roxy’s face curls up in anger as Roux takes over control of her vocal chords again. The interplay between the angel and its host is heartening; your mother still holds sway.

“Impossible,” you reply flatly. “I would know of it.”

“ _This one’s somewhere in the Pacific, probably in the Hadal._ ” Roux nods at the nervous girl, “ _Her people worship it._ ”

Your eyes have yet to leave the mutant - no, the corrupted. You now recognize her physical changes as the result of tampering by one of your ilk, and are more inclined to believe the angel. 

“Well, child? Who do you worship?” you ask, finally.

Her eyes dart from you to Roxy in fear. You nod at your mother, tipping your head out the door. 

“Worry not, I am not predisposed towards the methods of my barbaric associate. Now, come. I know there is worship involved. I can _feel_ it clinging to you.”

“I don’t fucking worship fuck-all,” she finally snarls. 

A small smile. Progress.

“Indeed? Then do elaborate on your unique appearance. It bears characteristics of a process I am somewhat acquainted with.” 

She must have picked up the bitter tinge in your voice because something changes in her demeanour. She looks at you with a touch more curiosity than fear. But sense seems to catch hold of her, and her eyes cut to the side again.

“Some of us are born this way,” she mutters, “Not like I asked for this.”

“The mutations or this job?”

“Uh, yes? Hello? I can hardly go outside without coverin’ up around here. Fucking came to this country to get away from manipulative bullshit like this and-”

She shuts up and glares at you sullenly, to which you give a nod. 

“I think I’ve heard enough. If we let you go, are you going to attempt this again?”

She looks stricken and that confirms it for you. She is under some manner of threat or geas. If you are going to have some manner of peace here, you are going to have to go to the source. You lean back into the chair and regard Kanaya.

“Please see to it that she’s comfortable. I am going to attempt a communion with this surviving horrorterror-”

“Rose, you are clearly still unwell from the fiasco with Sollux-”

“Which is why I need her in the room. What reverence she gives off is enough, for now.”

“For now! How long will that last? Do you even know how much this ‘communion’ will tax you?” Kanaya frets and it brings a small smile to your chapped lips. “What about-”

“Hush, love,” you say, leaning forward and putting your finger to her lips. It comes away damp and you rub the moisture off in your blankets. “I’ll be back before I am unduly strained.”

Worry is evident on her face still, but she relents. And so with a last look at the girl ( _I have not even gotten her name…_ ) you sink into the seat and let your consciousness go.

* * *

The Pacific is halfway across the world, but it is not so far a distance for an ethereal being of thought and emotion. You visualize the Earth spinning beneath you until your consciousness feels the brush of awareness, the press of resistance, somewhere, as Roux said, in the Pacific. You descend.

* * *

The thing in the chair closes its eyes and slumps bonelessly against the cushions. You wonder for a moment if you’re lucky enough for her to be dead, but the slow rise and fall the blankets enveloping her disappoints you. Still, maybe she’ll tire herself out with whatever she’s doing and never wake up. 

The Kanaya woman shifts and stands. “I know this must be terribly frightening for you, but all I can do is assure you that Roux is the amoral exception of this group.”

Yeah, sure.

“I hope that what pain she inflicted upon you has passed, but I can I offer you anything? Aspirin? Tea?”

Pssht, like you’re going to accept that. “It didn’t hurt. Screamin’ was from something else.”

“Ah. My apologies then for misinterpreting. Still, my offer stands. I’d even drink first to assure you of a lack of poison.”

“Whatever.” Anything else you were thinking of saying is interrupted by a knock from the hallway.

“Kanaya? Could you give these to… her? I thought she might be cold.” You flinch at the voice, but it’s a fairly normal human one this time around. Kanaya goes into the hall for a moment, but you stay seated. You’ve learned your lesson. Whatever skills you have aren’t enough to get past… whatever she is.

When she returns with jeans and a shirt, you raise an eyebrow. “You codda be kiddin’ me.”

A smile. “I know, they’re hideous. Still, I wouldn’t deny Roxy her motherly instincts.”

A snort.

She places them beside you, leaving the ultimate choice up to you, and returns to the hallway. A soft murmur she must think you can’t hear, something about tea, wanders out of the passageway. You stare at the clothes while they’re busy. Hell with it, at least you’ll look less exposed. And if you do manage to escape, you’ll look halfways normal. You unstrap the sheath from your thigh and slide into the jeans in an undulating motion that ends with you kipping up to your feet silently. The sheath goes back around your thigh, securing higher up to the beltloops of the denim. You snatch the sweater up, make a face at the scratchy fabric and decide to leave it for your escape.

Kanaya turns back, and starts a bit to see you upright, half-dressed. You make a note that maybe you _can_ sneak past her, just not with brute speed. That stealth bullshit you’re supposed to be trained in, yeah. 

The pair of you stare at each other, standoffish until you break the silence.

“What’s she gonna do?” you ask, nodding at the thing in the chair.

“Hmm, I imagine that verifying the presence of another horrorterror is her primary goal. I don’t think she left the Circle on particularly positive terms, but perhaps that was just her mien in general when she confided in me.”

“The hell’s the Circle?”

She looks at you, curiously. “I understand that is the term used by horrorterrors to refer to their organizational body, though perhaps that’s overstating it. I take it yours never mentioned the concept.”

“‘Mine,’ ha!” You could almost laugh. “We were its.”

Kanaya frowns in concern, but doesn’t push the point, which is a fucking blessing because you think you might have said too much as it is. The strange woman goes to take a seat, and you mirror her, rotating around the room to keep her in front of you. You have no idea where your knife is, and with that kind of strength she’d probably beat you one on one, but there’s no reason not to be cautious.

“Might I ask your name? We’ve been terribly rude.”

“Nah, you mightn’t” Is that even a word? Who the hell talks like this anyways? Your mind flashes back to sharp fangs revealed in a wrathful mouth and you swallow, getting an inkling. Still, you can’t let her see you perturbed, so you snap, “All you, uh, vampires talk like this?”

Her eyebrows go up, and that amused little smile lights up her face, “No, most of them go to lengths to blend in. I was just this verbose as a human.”

“Musta been real fun at parties.”

“Neither I nor Rose attended much in the way of parties.”

“Ha. Buncha nerds.”

“I must say, for someone so discomfitted, your tongue is quite sharp, particularly for one guessing at my nature. Still, I suppose there is something admirable in the willingness to believe the weird when presented with it.”

“Yeah. Weird,” you say, and gesture down at yourself.

She gives a little salute. “Touché.” 

Getting bored of that back-and-forth, you throw yourself into the chair opposite the apparent vampire. 

“You know, I rather envy you. You appear to be quite comfortable with your unorthodox form.”

The laugh that you bark is filled with as much derision as you can manage. 

“Comfortable? Sure. You gotta live in a slum, you’re gonna make the best of it,” you bite out. “Can barely fucking socialize like this, have to swim where no one’s watching, and basically fuck winter. Should never ha-”

You cut yourself short, looking away guiltily, angry at your slip. Worse yet, this Kanaya chick looks genuinely sympathetic and you scowl at her for it. Another knock interrupts whatever she was going to say, and you’re almost relieved when she comes back with a teapot. And two mugs. She only pours herself a cup, and promptly sips it, wincing at the heat. 

“Well, if winter has earned so much of your ire, perhaps you’ll take a cup?”

* * *

Your arrival does not go unnoticed. Your target rises before you, or you descend to meet it. It is difficult to tell the difference in this space. But before you two make contact, there is a gentle redirection of your attention. It is almost as if someone coughs discreetly, and you look in their direction. But no, no wait. There is a delicate pressure on your consciousness that you would never have picked up had you not been doing the same to Sollux for what seems like ages now. It is the gentle touch of a mother, turning the head of a child. It is also entirely unwelcome.

Your first reaction is to sear the presumptuous fool with psychic fire for their encroachment. But this is an arrogant thing, believing you to be susceptible to such things. So you turn and regard them, take them in.

Your earlier metaphor is not far off. You get the impression of a towering maternal figure, enthroned above a low, sussurating mass. A part of your mind touches that mass and growls in hunger. Worship. Ritualized worship. Oh yes, you hunger. But you force it away, force yourself to focus. Her throne manifests before she does, a thing of petrified wood and curving, whorled design. It is quite striking in a brutal, primal way. Then she comes forth like the glittering dawn over the ocean, all warmth and promise. As to your own manifestation, you stay ephemeral, an astral shadow, casting darkness in immateriality.

“Greetings, pretender.”

“Hello, priestess. That is what you are, yes?”

“I suppose so. I prefer less religious titles.”

You snort, indelicately. In this astral form it comes across as a disdainful flutter of your form. “So says she held up by the strength of ritual.”

“My children do what is best for them, as I do.”

“Aha. It is at this point that you reveal your preferred form of address to be Mother or some such. You will forgive me if I do not acquiesce.”

“That’s wonderful. I wouldn’t want to any sort of association with a pretender. Now, what have you done with my daughter?”

“Oh, the assassin you sent for me? I imagine she’s being horribly mistreated now, screaming in the clutches of the blood-monster I left her with-”

“Torture. I should have known.”

“-as she is forced to choose from hundreds, literally hundreds of boutique teas.”

“...excuse me?”

“At some point I imagine my birth mother, wreathed in the radiance of the thing that possesses her, will subject her to images of me in my childhood, nattering with twin voices, edging on madness.”

Something like a cloud passes over the visage of this brown-skinned projection, something that is marred by a hint of a pout. 

“I don’t take kindly to people who mock me.”

“Neither do I. You sent a child after me.”

“I thought her up to the job. Clearly, I was wrong.”

Your anger flares, a dark light flickering in your shadow. “You sent an unwilling child after me.”

“Meenah has always been reluctant to do what’s best for the People.”

“So you trample over her free will? What did you threaten her with to get your way?”

“Please, I would never threaten one of my own. I merely reminded her who fed her, clothed her, brought her up, before she saw fit to run off to the unbelieving outside.”

“So you guilt-tripped her.”

Something like hauteur begins to form on the projection. “I don’t like your tone, preten-”

“Enough, you bleating kid,” you bite out. Suddenly her radiance is doused, your own projection blotting the ephemeral void with your shadow. Confusion, then panic flits from her being, but she doesn’t have even so much time to resolve them to her projection before you dismiss it, rending her connection to the astral with eyes made of teeth and serrated tongues. Her plummeting descent tastes of terror.

* * *

You are sipping reluctantly at the cup of warm tea you’ve been offered. You let it sit a good long time, watching the Kanaya-thing drink her stuff in silence. Eventually though, your lips smacked and you figured you were dead anyways, so you might as well die warm. Your first gulp proved it was at the perfect temperature so you down the whole thing in defiance and poured yourself another cup. You’re still surprised at the taste. Kinda… savoury? you guess, and nothing like the bitter stuff you’re used to hearing called tea.

“Yeah, ok, this shit ain’t bad. If I’m gonna die from it, there are worse ways to go,” you say to fill the silence. Your crack gets a quiet laugh from the woman.

“Why, thank you. I have taken it upon myself to restock the Lalondes’ tea supplies, since Rose’s tastes are virtually nonexistent at this point.”

“What, that a side effect of becoming a tentacularly mouthy beast thing?”

To your surprise she blushes. Like, intensely. You being full of hormones, and not having been laid in fucking weeks, you key right in. 

“Holy shit. You are fucking the tentacle beast from under the sea. Holy shit, I don’t know if that’s awesome or flat-out batshit crazy.”

“There is a witty remark somewhere in there about bats,” she manages through a constricted, probably dry throat, “but I will not be moved to it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably moved to a fuckton else though,” you crack, waggling your eyebrows.

She clears her throat, “I would appreciate it if we could perhaps not discussed my personal life any longer.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you wave your hand. “You laid off, I will too.”

“ _Thank_ you,” she breathes, in a sigh of relief.

“Hell, I wasn’t far off about y’all bein’ nerds.” She cocks a groomed eyebrow at you. “Look, I showed up on this continent when I was fourteen and I’m more comfortable talkin’ about fuckin’ than you, for fuck’s sake.”

“Oh? Perhaps that is an artefact of how you came to be here?”

“And I was just respectin’ you for not going digging.”

“I am not necessarily prying into your motives! I am simply interested in how a girl of fourteen from elsewhere made it to this country and with such a… colourful vocabulary.”

“Pfft. This vocab’s pretty standard for sailors blaring rap music all the goddamn time.”

She smiles, leans back with her cup of tea, crosses her legs. It makes you incredibly irritated for some reason.

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing! I was just preparing myself for the story you seem to be itching to tell.”

“Like hell.”

“As you say. I shan’t pry.”

You stare at her. Loathing comes to mind. You’re struck by a feeling you think loathing reely fits. Because she might have a point. You can’t go blathering your origins around this racist, anti-immigrant fucking country, but these folk are like you. Different. Insular. _Secret_. God fucking dammit. You look around.

“Might have somethin’ to say if you got somethin’ to eat.”

* * *

You descend.

Not to follow the priestess, but to find the god-thing. From the astral you slip to a lower plane, this one. The concepts form around you as if you are plummeting through the skies and as your mind coheres on the physical you plunge through the warm surface waters of the Pacific. It is but an illusion, a liminal space for you to transition to this horrorterror’s mental domain.

The water grows colder as you sink and the human part of you cringes from it. The horrorterror welcomes the cool embrace, even as it is wary of its kin down here. The Noble Circle has never been a familial congregation. Pressure grows, the mental landscape shifting to accommodate the presence of a god-thing joining you.

_You presume much coming here, pretender. I should consume your paltry, flickering soul, no matter your origin._

_You are welcome to try. Perhaps you’ll have better luck than your priestess in resisting **me.**_

_What did you work upon her?_

_What, couldn’t you tell?_ you mock. What apprehension you had before is slowly dispersing. Even fed on the worship of a few hundred humans, you can feel the contours of this horrorterror’s mind. It is angry, but also afraid. _What do you fear, false god of the deep? Surely not me, pretender that I am._

_Fool._ A superior whisper. _You caper about on the surface, drawing attention to yourself. You attract attention. Unwelcome attention._

A pause. _I have an inkling of what you speak._

Mocking laughter, the cawing chortles of a thousand beaked mouths erupt in your mind. _Do you? Do you really? Pitiful thing. You have barely existed for two decades-_

_Closer to fifty, relatively speaking. You really have no idea what I am, do you? Interesting. When were you cut off?_

Silence.

_It must have been millennia ago. My existence had been planned at least that long. It is irrelevant in any case._ Why _you were cut off, now there is a better question._

_I was not cut off! I left. I left the cowards that could not survive on lean pickings. I left them that would cower in safe shadows while the angels turned our people from us. I left those not clever enough to adapt._

_And yet now you cower here, afraid of the beast that is coming._

The righteous anger of the horrorterror recoils from the knowledge that blooms from your mind.

_You send girl-assassins to end someone you think is drawing the world-eater to this plane. You have hidden here for millennia, content in your tiny piece of of the world, too scared to reach out further lest you be burned by angels or worse. And you have the gall to call_ us _cowards._

_If you know it comes why do-_

_**BECAUSE I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE, YOU MISBORN EEL.** I have seen my people, all people disassembled in the most painful manners possible to feed a hungering thing. I have seen the world on fire, the Outer Ring emptied of Our Number. I have seen ALL of this, and you may search my mind to see it for yourself. I can already see what your reaction will be._

You let a sliver of your mind open, a compartment to those terrible visions. As soon as you do, the horrorterror flinches from the images. 

_But can you guess what mine will be, what my answer to this Caliborn will be?_

_No._

_Correct._ Confusion. _It will be “No.”_

There is a silence between you, as the horrorterror’s atrophied mind begins to feel out the contours of yours. It is careful, but not careful enough to avoid pricking itself on the jagged edges of the mad conglomeration that is a human-become-goddess. 

_You think to beat it._

_I intend to try._

_You play at heroism, small thing, but you have the dark heart of all our kind._

_Your priestess plays at mothering, starved god, but sends children to die. If you can resolve one, then surely the other can follow as well._

Your once-kin considers a long while. You feel the slow ebb and flow of its thoughts in this deep place and understand that more is going on behind its facade than it lets on. In the end, the only thing that differs between this exiled thing and the Circle is where they desperately try to survive.

Finally, _I am Gl'bgolyb, the Rift’s Carbuncle, once Speaker of the Vast Glub, though that power is beyond me now. With whom do I speak?_

You find yourself pleasantly surprised. You were expecting this to be much more difficult. You take the formalized olive branch. _I am Rose Lalonde, Emissary to the Noble Circle. A pleasure to meet such long-lost kin._

A low grumbling. _A pleasure to meet a newborn. What brings you to my domain?_

* * *

With a delicate tapping against her face, Kanaya informs you that you’ve got something on yours. You wipe away at it messily, and check the back of your hand. You lick up the cold sauce and continue shoveling pasta into your mouth. You were full a bowlful back, but you’re not sure when you’re going to eat this well again, so you are making the most of it. 

The older human hovers around in the kitchen. You’re still not sure about her, but at least the glowing eye bit has stopped. You shouldn’t be this relaxed, but the simple pleasures of good food and drink are doing a wicked job on you. If there was alcohol involved, you might even be convinced to give this up-

You flinch instinctively from the thought, expecting the crushing order to come crashing back down on you. But there’s nothing. You can hear Mother’s voice giving the order, but there’s no power behind it, no compulsion. Your eyes dart to the still woman, wrapped in blankets.

“Are you alright?” Kanaya asks.

“I think your girlie’s done something.”

“My-? What do you mean?”

“I don’ wanna kill her anymore.” The look on Kanaya’s face is pretty good.

“I… suppose that’s a good thing?”

“Still might kill the old broad for what she did though.”

“Please don’t,” Kanaya returns with a small smile. “As much as we would all be gladly rid of Roux-”

“ _Keep dreaming, parasite!_ ”

“-we are rather attached to Roxy.”

“You ever gonna clear any of that up or am I gonna have to deal with this cryptic shit all night long?”

“Hmm,” murmurs Kanaya, taking a sip of tea. “A trade perhaps: some explanation of those two for your name.”

“Ha!” You laugh it off, but then it occurs to you: whatever the shrunken, malnourished woman did cut the cord between your mom and you. And these people are at least _like_ you. Worst case, you’re going from manipulative assholes to manipulative assholes who can cook. And you can always run once you’re in their confidence.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. It’s Meenah. Meenah Peixes.”

The maybe-vampire across from you looks faintly surprised. “Well then, welcome, Meenah. My name is Kanaya Maryam, and that is Roxy Lalonde. She’s possessed.”

It’s your turn to look surprised. “What, like, by a demon?”

“Quite the opposite, actually.” Another sip. “An angel.”

Your mouth hangs open for a second, pasta frozen halfway to it. Then you continue with your meal. Around a mouthful of delicious, you manage a, “Huh.”

Kanaya gives that irritatingly comforting smile and puts down her teacup to pour everyone more. A third cup has appeared and she pours into that as well, just as the pile of blankets shifts. You start, jumping a half inch and stare at the thing sitting up in the chair.

Blearily she blinks and there’s the disgusting, sticky sound of flesh separating along biologic boundaries, her lips coming apart, her tongue prying itself from the top of her mouth. 

“Something smells good.”

Then there’s the gurgling bubble of a ravenous stomach, and you have to laugh. Everyone turns to stare at you, and you have to put your bowl down because your sides are convulsing. It’s too much. You were afraid of this woman, who has the same primal instincts you do, whose first reaction after waking up is to focus on _sustenance_. There’s a base reptilian part of her brain too.

* * *

You have a cup of tea and a small bowl of real, human food. It feels better than you are willing to admit. There’s more meat than spaghetti in this, and more sauce besides. That’s good. You’re not sure what you can keep down. Some days, you’re not sure what you can digest.

“Your priestess won’t be looking for you,” you say after a strand of carbs slithers its way down your gullet. 

The regard with which she looks at you is heartening. Physically, spiritually. You’re not sure what you can digest, but you’ll devour her worship all day long. 

“So you _did_ do something. The hell was it? Mom wasn’t too keen about letting go of a -”

“She will believe that it was a price to be paid for peace between Gl'bgolyb and myself. In truth we came to a much different accord.”

“ _What was that, then?_ ” The voice of Roux gets a flinch out of your mutated guest, preempting her own response.

“They give me information on the beast coming for us, I deal with it.”

“ _And you have it?_ ” The question is sharp, pressing. You can feel the desperate attention behind it.

“After a fashion. And no,” you growl, looking to the empty hall where the thing lurks in your mother’s mind,, “I don’t feel like sharing it right now, angel.”

You sip down a bit more tea and return your attention to the slight islander. “Now, what to do with you. You’re not mine, not really, so so long as this nonsense with attempted murder is done with, you are quite free to go.”

“Nah, I shore as hell ain’t gonna be tryin’ to gut the one that set me free.” She shifts uncomfortably in old jeans a touch too small for her. Yours? Your mother’s? It occurs to you that though she is not yours, you do bear some responsibility for her. You have clothed her, set her free. And though she may not believe it herself, her belief sustains a small part of you. You owe her that, and hunger for more besides.

“I would offer you a place here, but I wouldn’t care to put you in such close proximity to, well, that.” You nod to the hallway.

“Nah, ‘s cool. I can make my own way.” 

A part of your mind snarls in hunger. It is interrupted by a gentler tone, and a face poking out from the hallway. 

“Well, if you need a place to catch your breath, I know a nurse in town that helps people get their feet back under them.”

You nearly choke suppressing the laugh and end up coughing into your tea.

“Vantas? Vantas with this one? Oh, this I have to see. Please… Meenah. Please, I beg you. Room with Vantas for a while. Drive the old nag up the wall and report back regularly.”

Kanaya’s laugh is a clear bell, or at least that is what you would like to say. In reality, it is more of a bemused, mean cackle that she quickly squashes, while throwing a pillow in your general direction. You deflect it with a smile. While Meenah brusquely demands answers for the laughter, you lock eyes with your lover and give her a small, thankful nod. It does not matter what it is for. It could be this moment. It could be her unending care. It could be her patience.

For now you simply enjoy your moment of happiness, stolen from a hard, merciless life. You will take it, in the face of the drama and tragedy yet to come.


	4. This Fertile Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The neon and LED lights of New York turn the night into a mockery of rest and make the hiding of sin a laughable impossibility. The city glimmers and gleams in time to the invisible pulses of every creature therein, from the lowliest cockroach to a resident angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is _only_ to be read after Chapter 8 of [All Drama Has Its Roots in the Past.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2518979/chapters/15090007) Chronologically it occurs somewhere between the Epilogue of The House of Night and Noon and All Drama.

“Hell, sorry to hear that Kans, dear. You need to me to take a hike? There are always hotels…”

“Nonsense. And you need not bother yourself about apologies. The Valencia boutique was designed to be more of a hometown courtesy rather than a flagship store for roiling profits and the attention of the press. It won’t affect the economic standing of the company substantially, so if witless town-dwellers want to drag their ambulatory limbs with the permits, they can go right ahead.”

“Look at you, talking profits and bureaucratic wrangling. All grown up. It seems like yesterday I was giggling, watching you hurl yourself off my daughter in the living room.”

“That is, ah. That is certainly a thing I did once, yes.”

“Eeeee, you blush so easily. Shame about the blood thing, it could be brighter.”

“Yes, well. How goes patent court?”

Roxy flung herself haphazardly across the couch, laptop bag sinking to the floor with slightly more grace. 

“Oh my god, it is so tedious, I would literally rather be leaking from all my orifices again.”

 _That can be arranged_ , you think coyly.

“Oh don’t you dare,” Roxy mutters, while Kanaya cocks her head. Roxy waves it off. “Backseat driver.”

 _Rude_.

_Deal with it._

“Sorry to bring it into your house, but…”

“Oh please don’t trouble yourself, Roxy. If you are comfortable with your guest, I am comfortable with…it? her? as well.”

_See? Even the genetic abomination has more courtesy than you do._

_That’s because I’m pretty sure they replaced her blood with it._

“Oh, she’ll behave. Come and go at odd hours of the night maybe, but that’s about it. I hope you don’t mind? This wasn’t really an issue while you were gonna be away.”

“Not at all. If anything, strange comings and goings might finally give this domicile that requisite air of mystery I am always being told I need to cultivate.”

“Ha, yeah, you’re a pretty shitty vampire, up with the sun, holding down a day job, not luring impressionable virgins back to your pad.”

“Guilty on all counts,” Kanaya’s eyes dart up over the massive sketchboard she has propped up on her lap. “Though from what I’ve heard, Roux seems to have that part handled for all of us combined. If I may request that, ah…”

“You heard the lady, angel. No bringing anyone back for sexytimes.”

_The pair of you are absolutely no fun._

While the stodgy mortals natter on, you focus on the apartment around you. Though your host’s peripheral vision is good, there is quite a bit of fuzziness to the detail. From what you can tell, the place is a lot more… clinical, than you’d expect. Kanaya Maryam gives off a sense of carefully constructed elegance which you supposed this place has in spades, what with it’s delicately crafted furniture and bright, lightening paintings. But there’s also a real sense of compassion and human comfort to her that this place utterly lacks.

Perhaps that’s constructed too. It’s not like she’s particularly human. If you had lips, they’d curl in disgust. Corruption of any kind offends you and yours, no matter how much it may have benefited the changed. You know, distantly, of Maryam’s trials and other responsibilities, but it looks like she’s held up just fine, despite the stress. You wonder what would have become of her, had she not been changed.

You think she’d probably have been stuck in Rainbow Falls, and maybe could have been one of your conquests. _Ha, unlikely. Doesn’t quite seem the clubbing type._

“...nd the wine fridge is not actually a wine fridge, so please don’t drink from it.”

“Ah. Ew. Oh, shit, sorry-!”

The young vampire waves the insult off. “Yes that is certainly the response I was expecting. It is no problem, Roxy. I am well aware of the reaction my sustenance sources could cause and I consider it better that you are forewarned.”

“Gosh, look at you, so _considerate_.”

“Please, you’ll think different when Duena’s in here, yelling into the phone in Spanish at 5am.”

“Well, if things keep on as they have been, it’ll be Roux who has to deal with that, not me. I don’t rise until, like, eight.”

* * *

Roxy is true to her word. You and Duena never see her before that hour, and it is rare when the thing called Roux gets in late enough to be seen moving Roxy like the smoothest and most skillful puppeteer. Even as it (they? she?) passes and nods with a deferent smile, your skin prickles and your nostrils flare. She smells like all manner of alcohol and things best left unconsidered. After it’s gone to the guest room, Duena asks,

“That was… not Señora Lalonde, was it?”

“No, Duena. It was not. Please be careful around it. It may be an ally, but I’ve no idea how… reliable of one.”

“I see. Not one of the kin, then?”

“I cannot seem to imagine a being more distantly removed from them.”

You are thankful that aside from her initial bout of heroism, your haemofont has shown a good deal of sensibility and self-preservation. She is the reason you are able to stay on top of the Dolorosa’s enterprise and still produce the works that drive it, and you would go to great lengths to preserve her from whatever Roux represents. 

You feel like you probably should have gotten a better briefing on what the thing is from Rose, but you don’t feel like bothering her in her recuperation.

Regardless, as Duena cannot keep up with your hours, she is gone by the time the the thing is up and around, so it is only yourself that has to deal with it. Late at night, when it stalks out of Roxy’s room, you can feel its gaze on you, an almost electric, heavy thing. It is plainly intrigued by you, but its interactions are limited to pleasantries on the way out the door.

Roxy claims it is making the most of what time it has on this plane. You think there is a little more to life than one-night stands and copious amounts of alcohol.

It turns out she does as well.

* * *

Kanaya is sitting upright, cross-legged on one of her all-too-stiff couches, working away at an array of cloth when you exit your room, still clothed in the silken robe that she provided Roxy. You’d luxuriated in a shower today already, bearing in mind Roxy’s request to please not wreck her body too much tonight. You don’t know what her problem is, you purge all the contaminants and the soreness is pleasant, if anything.

It’s a night in for you, you expect. A night in with a vampire, of all things. If you were given to reading romance, it might excite you, over the roiling instinctive disgust. Instead, you are quite sure this is going to be astoundingly boring, Kanaya being the bookish nerd you know.

She barely gives you a glance, before a double-take takes in your robe and still-wet hair. You grant her Roxy’s best, most dazzling smile. Her flat expression makes it clear what she thinks of it, and you. Ah well. You cast yourself dramatically into a squared-off leather chair, heaving a put-upon sigh.

Kanaya does not take the bait. _Pfah, fine._

“Kanaya, dear, we never talk! Such close associates should get to know each other, don’t you think?”

Her eyes flick up, surprised and more than a little disbelieving. You make an innocent gesture of “you first,” keeping a clear and open expression.

“I am not sure there’s much about you that I want to know. Regardless and in no way an attempt to hurry you out the elevator, are you not a little behind on your… nightly escapades?”

“Oh, Roxy asked me not to ‘wreck her body’ tonight, whatever that means. She knows very well I return it in excellent shape.”

“Hmm, the thought of you being so considerate has not been so much as a ship on the horizon of my mental seascape.”

“But how would you know? We’ve barely spoken.”

Annoyance flickers across Kanaya’s face. _Point to Roux_.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to ply you with questions about the nature of your existence.”

“Kanaya, all I am looking for is conversation. You’re providing it amply.”

“Very well.” Jade eyes dart up and spear you. “What is your objective with the family Lalonde?”

A grin spreads to painful fullness on your face, your lips curling into manic dimples. _So direct_.

“Why, I’m here to assist Roxy in her inter-dimensional endeavors, anything from rescuing the corrupted soul of her barely-raised daughter to her current investigations into, ah… entropy.”

Her flat gaze indicates that she doesn’t quite buy it. “You are a scientist?”

“Hardly. Are you a textile engineer? No? But you can still manage these gorgeous works,” you say, picking up a fashion magazine from a side-table and flipping precisely to a spread by the Dolorosa. 

“I… see.”

“Hmm, maybe that metaphor didn’t quite stick. You know how basic multiplication is something you can do without thinking about it? Now imagine trying to teach a child.”

A frown tells you perhaps that metaphor was even worse. But you’ve nothing to lose, so you bull clear through.

“Now imagine that instead of multiplication it is nth-dimensional physics and it is so unconscious for you it may as well be… sewing.”

Her hands freeze as Kanaya’s attention suddenly reverts to the work in her hands, which had been managing quite well with her absorbed in your explanation.

“My turn then, I think. Why are you with the foul, failed-gate offspring of humanity and the most obscene nightmares of existence?”

What interest there was disappears as her face closes up in offence. Well, you knew that was going to happen. You didn’t expect what comes next.

“Because she is intelligent, makes me laugh and is beautiful in the manner of new quickenings growing from the natural ruins of ancient foliage.”

You blink. Were you poetically inclined, that could have been beautiful. Leaning back, you gesture at her, encouraging her curiosity. She is quiet a moment, contemplative, even has her fingers thread the needle through the cloth draped over her lap, held up in a dainty hand.

“Are you actually, in reality, an angel?”

“Hmm. Yes and no,” you murmur and lower eyelids coyly at the vampire, a small smile curling your lips. When she looks expectant, you just raise your eyebrows, a picture of innocence.

“It is a rather personal question. I’m not sure I want to go into such detail. Perhaps if you’d care to share some more?”

A delicate snort. “Unlikely.”

“Mmm, well I won’t know until I try,” you say, leaning forward. “Given that I was perhaps too rude before, let me approach the topic from a different angle…”

You steeple your fingers, unconscious of the slipping of the gown until Maryam’s eyes dart to your chest. Then, grinning, you lean back, not bothering to hide Roxy’s near-exposed assets as the lapels of the thing hang off your shoulder by bare millimeters. You can feel the surge of guilty desire, and the sudden, shocking marshalling of them. If nothing else, the self-control of the Dolorosa is monstrous. Her self-control, or capacity for repression.

“The pair of you are such… weighty individuals. Destiny and power swirl and press down all around you, such that they’re almost palpable things. Your capabilities lie so far beyond humanity, it is confusing to me why you would shackle each other to your mortality.”

“I confess I do not understand your unspoken query.”

“Love. Devotion. These things anchor you to the here and now when your minds should be reaching forward, planning, grasping. Seizing the future for you and your kind. Possibly saving it, given what portents keep Rose up at night.”

“So you believe that we are engaging in limiting behaviour by showing and sharing in our affection?”

“Basically.”

“Who says that we have to be limited by our bonds?”

“You do. Right there, in those words. _Bonds_.” Your voices crackles with emphasis and power besides. “We bound humanity to save it from itself, from the rapacious hungers of the Circle, and of course to feed ourselves… and look at what you’ve done to yourselves.”

You gesture out into the night. “All this talk of love and brotherhood… you could be amongst the stars by now. But you are bound to each other, and this ball of dust.”

The last sentence is spit in detestation, a curse on humanity and what the Host has done to them. You don’t know why or how, but this has enraged Kanaya more than your shot at her and Rose. Perhaps something about her parasite duties? Or is she, and you shudder in slight anticipation, _religious?_.

“My turn.” There’s something predatory in her suddenly hard voice that causes you to straighten, excites you. It appears that you’ve arrived at the lightning round. “Whenever… whatever is going on has run its overly long and convoluted course, on what inhabited planet do you think it is possible for that ‘foul offspring of humanity and the most obscene nightmares of existence’ to let you get away with… possessing her mother?”

It is a long time before you think to get up, your eyes dry from staring at the vampire, through her and into an uncertain future. What Sight you have on this plane does not extend that far. _Huh. Point to Maryam._

* * *

One afternoon, you return from a shopping trip to find something vaguely… off about your apartments. You divest yourself of light coat you wore out and look around, taking in the open bottles… and the single closed one. There is a charge in the atmosphere, one that you cannot immediately place. When Roux strolls out of Roxy’s room, you suspect the source of it. The air tastes of the pink lightning you’ve seen her and Roxy manifest in times of stress.

“Perhaps I am being overly puritanical in my personal belief structure, but I did not think that,“ you check your phone, “before three pm was an appropriate time to drink.”

Roux’s grin is wide and languid and she waves you off in a manner that irritates you to no end. “Your prudish, puritanical beliefs are more than welcome here, dear Kanaya. Roxy was the one to crack those bottles, along with Duena. Celebrating her first win before the courts, and all that.”

You frown at Duena’s involvement with this pair, but if it was with Roxy, you suppose it was safe enough. Best to focus on the positive.

“As wonderful as that news is, I take it from your phrasing that there is more work yet to be done?”

Another off-hand wave as Roxy finds a seat at your kitchen table. “Something about the particulars… the major corporation blocking her research has had its copyright claim thrown out on the basis that its witnesses clearly didn’t understand half of what Roxy was talking about. As if they would!”

Roux tips a wineglass towards her, examining the dregs with something like disgust and curiosity playing across her face. Then her eyes dart up towards you. “I doubt they’d be able to follow her even before _I_ got involved. In any case, there’s only the academics to shake off and while that will take some time based on sheer volume, it should be far less stressful case-by-case. From what I understand. Mortal bureaucracy.”

She rolls her eyes and for a moment you feel a sharp pang of camaraderie, sisterhood found in exasperation of societal norms. The knowing smirk on her face wipes the feeling from yours. You turn your attention to putting the fabrics away into their various hampers. Duena has tried to learn the haphazard, arcane thing that laughingly passes as your filing system, but there’s little hope. You navigate most of it by feel, one hand running over the stored fabrics, another rooting around in the bag you brought home. 

There’s a snap-hiss behind you at some point and a look over your shoulder reveals that Roux is helping herself to a tall glass of sparkling water, staying well clear of the remaining closed bottle. Which is just as well, as that particular shape designates it one of your storage bottles. The garnet glimmer of that fluid sets glands to salivating and it occurs to you that although you took lunch with a distribution agent for Canada, you have not fed properly since last night.

You close the last drawer and pluck a glass from the overhead racks in your kitchens. With a now-practiced flick of your fingers, you pop the flip-top bottle open and decant yourself a long pull from the bottle of blood. Other clades have far more formalized names for their storage containers, or have none at all, but you’ve yet to see that point of that particular pretension. You are fond of flowery presentation, but at the core of things, you are fundamentally practical.

In your hunger you take a gulp from the stuff and immediately an image of a haughty French connoisseur flashes before your eyes. Your sudden, shuddering shock serves as a fantastic object lesson in the advantages of sampling the nose of a beverage before knocking one back. Muscles clench and your jaws bite down instinctively as a _very particular_ mouthfeel of serotonin and other sundry biochems hits your palette. 

Despite your undead state, you can feel your face colour, pathetically. 

Thankfully, you manage to swallow the thick liquid without coughing. But you all but slam the glass onto the granite counter-top. The languid grin opposite you slowly morphs into something more gleeful, a predatory expression of the cat that got into the cream..

“What. Did you. Do. To. Duena?” You grind out, nails scraping silently across perfectly polished stone.

Your growling interrogation is met with piercing, scratching laughter as the creature across from you abandons its polite mockery of human sounds.

“ _Please, dear Kanaya! I did nothing to her that she wasn’t_ very _solicitous of._ ”

“I beg your-”

“ _Oh beg Roxy’s! The little minx was almost all over my host before they got truly tanked. While Roxy was having a crisis about how to deal with the, ah, ‘hella flattering’ attention, I offered to take over the situation. Roxy took me up with_ unseemly _haste. Really, you’d think the woman would have sorted out her sexu-_ ”

“Enough!” You nearly shout, swallowing back a near mouthful of saliva and forcibly retracting your incisors with a painful, grinding tug, muscles non-existent in humans doing their macabre work. With horrible precision, you force your body’s reaction to the chemicals out of mind, even as you try to banish the idea of-

“ _Duena is such a luscious thing isn’t she? And once she’s riled and those expansive thighs part, mm-MMM!_ ”

“I do NOT want to hear it, you, you inhumane seductress!” You shout, even as the room brightens painfully, impossibly, with the release of pure solar radiation from your every cell. When the eye-searing light fades, Roux is no longer beside you, but beside you, whispering in your ear.

“ _Because you’re too much of a prude to discuss these things among friends? Or because you don’t want to think about sinking your fangs into that soft flesh? Because you don’t want to imagine_ your _head between her legggguurk!_ ”

Its next words catch in her throat as you seize and pin it by that appendage to the wall. The fact that your lover’s mother’s body is now held up by bare skin, cartilage and muscle is irrelevant before your incandescent rage.

“One. You will not attempt to feed me the product of your conquests without their or my consent ever again.” You shiver at the repudiation of Duena’s consent, even as a part of your mind wonders if she knew what she was doing.

“Two. You will _not_ , and I do so repeat, _NOT_ , ever again violate the sanctity of the bond between haemofont and clade.”

“Oh, sanctity! Please, preach to the ange-” Its desperate gasps shut off as you press closer, denying it breath.

You do not so much as say another word and allow the searing light of the sun to speak for you. You are an avatar of holy light the likes of which this extra-terrestrial pretender cannot ever conceive and you will _not_ suffer your people this thing’s predations. A distant part of you wonders at the damage that you are doing to Roxy, even as her body nods in silent, reluctant acquiescence. 

It is not so much released as cast aside in a final, inhumanly strong motion. You watch it slink back into its room with not so much as a glance back despite its swaying, feminine hips. A swear beneath you escapes your lips and you shake your head, trying to clear it of the ghost of intimacies not your own. The bottle of ill-taken blood is drained into the sink and you contemplate a cold shower, gritting your teeth at the violation that has been forced upon you and Duena, trying to erase the 

_life-affirming heat of the moment, the pulse of breath that danced across your lips and tongue and down your throat in a denial of what you cannot have wi-_

You spend what feels like an hour collecting yourself, re-compartmentalizing your needs and desires. You are, above all, immensely practical in your service of others. Then you knock back the last of the blood and take your shower.

It is not cold.

* * *

Maryam finds you on the balcony, presumably having followed the trail of kicked-off shoes, scarf and jacket. It's getting cold on this planet, and adapting to it is a sensation both curious and irritating. Normally you are all too happy to follow Roxy's requests that you “bundle up,” but tonight, right now, you find the cold... purifying. Were you any warmer, you feel like you would go up in a liquid pyre of conflicting emotions and chemicals.

“I would appreciate it if you refrained from scattering the articles of your clothing all around my apartment like it is some manner of house of ill repute.”

A surge of emotion hits you and threatens ill-action, lashing out at the vampire. You grit your teeth and it is only with the greatest effort that you manage, grindingly,

“ _Sorry._ ”

You can feel the mild surprise and confusion behind you. There is something like a hesitant shrug back there and some shuffling. You turn your attention back to purging this ridiculous cocktail of feelings. Your grip tightens on the railing and you can almost hear it creak from immense, abnormal pressure. Your hands begin to ache and you trace the bursting of capillaries, sure to leave bruises. The pain chases its way along your nerve endings and you replay the sensation, using its far simpler stimulus to regulate your shared mind. Its signals are easy to decode, not caught up in a terrible number of intertwined chemical receptors and conditioned societal mores.

What feels like an eternity later, but is probably bare moments, Kanaya speaks again.

“Is there a reason the balcony door is letting this draft in or are you simply posing in a dramatic fashion for your ego's sake?”

“ _Then shut it, creature!_ ” you snarl, whirling half around and undoing all your work on this body's systems. Kanaya takes a step back and you recall yourself, drawing in the sparking lightning that dances across bared teeth in a breath. You turn back to the dark neon sprawl of the city, but it’s too late. She's seen the tears, pink-tinged things still damp on your cheeks.

She steps up, and you can sense aggression that is really not helping here.

“What have you done, Rou-”

“ _Nothing! I did nothing! Your fucking mortals did this-_ ” The scratching, staticky mess that is your voice in this form breaks with a cascade of lightning down your arms and like a dam you go with it, knees giving out, the chemical rush finally too much. Your grip on the railing remains tight, sparking with red-hued lightning as it is, even as the rest of this body quakes uncontrollably in sobs.

“Roux-” an approaching warmth and you screech,

“ _Don't touch me! Don’t_ fucking _touch me! Stop with this waste of care!_ ” you spark with sudden rage, electric arcs flaring up off the body's back, another function that you're losing control of. “ _Go back to your knitting and stop playing at mortality around me._ ”

A long moment as Kanaya settles on the ground behind you.

“No.”

A crackling, burbling laugh escapes your throat. “ _Of course. Why give the exile anything? It's only here for its own nefarious purposes._ ”

Oh fuck, that was not a thing to disclose. You cannot believe that your judgement is impaired because of this. This is worse than being drunk.

“You are clearly in some discomfort and I would prefer it if Roxy's body was returned to her in good condition.”

You laugh in self-derision again, all high and scratching, but you can hear the discomfort in Kanaya's voice, the uncertainty and you are secretly glad. But you do not turn around. Your chest heaves in sobs as you struggle to get your breathing under control. The distant uncertainty of Maryam is not helping and you want to lash out again, remove her from the equation.

Finally, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Oh by the all the forces in Heaven you do not.

“I... cannot know if it will matter to you, but historically, among humans, discussing a matter of emotional impact assists the processing thereof.”

“ _I don't know how that could possibly be delivered any more clinically._ ”

“I am sure that with sufficient forewarning I could compose a suitable report.”

You still struggle with your breathing, but the sobbing has been eliminated. When you are more confident that you won't tear a face off, yours or hers, you ask,

“ _Why would you even care?_ ”

Silence. You can feel the deliberation, the hesitation at the quick, off-the-cuff response. And then,

“Your mortals.” You can hear the quotation marks hanging heavy in her voice. “Playing at mortality. You are very much on the mark with your verbal archery. It was not so very long ago that I was struggling with my place in this world, a lost child thrust into a dark new forest of her own making and so very, very unprepared for it.

“You might find that our positions are very reminiscent of each other's if you spent a moment of your life thinking of others, thinking beyond the bitter, ensaring confines of the adhesive flypaper of your own mind.”

That's just it. What she doesn't understand, perhaps cannot understand.

“ _What good can come of immortals caring about mortals, interfering with them?_ ” you whisper. A hard, audible swallow. _“Hells, what good can come of mortals interfering with each other?_ ”

She tries to respect the silence you fall into, but as you fall deeper into it, she prompts you, perhaps tipped off by shoulders hunching forwards, a head lowering.

“How... were you interfered with, Roux?”

She catches herself so quickly it is almost seamless. But your personal passage of time is concerned with the flicker of neurons firing, so you notice the hitch in her voice, her hesitation at calling you by name in a manner that's not castigating. In the moments that pass, that have passed, you have already relived the moments.

“ _I was walking home, thoroughly disappointed with tonight's selection of possible partners. I'd attracted a group of young men intent on cat-calling me and worse and I was... prepared to deal with them in the usual fashion._ ”

You almost risk a glance over your shoulder to take in Kanaya's reaction to “the usual fashion.” You doubt she would approve of Roxy's less-than-savoury experiments.

“ _But before any of that could play out... and it's weird, but... No, I'm losing the, the um, the story._ ” You bite your lip and blink once, twice, watching pink sparking tears sizzle and snap to the ground. “ _I felt, kourvikoum-like felt, the situation play out and all of a sudden there were these... girls, around me. Half Roxy's age, if that._

“ _I don't know where they came from, but I have to assume it was another club or bar or something, but they... they didn't register. They were so irrelevant, so miniscule in the grand scheme of things, that my Sight did not even register them._ ”

You lick suddenly parched lips and continue. “ _I jumped at their presence, but they waved it off, giggling and talking with me like I was some old friend. Before I knew what I was doing, I was helping them call an Uber and negotiating who would pay what on the route. By... oh Heaven, how do you, hnnnnnnn-?!_ ”

You seize and with an audible snap your hands detach from the rail, a sudden jerk that ends with your arms around you, your grip now pressing into the flesh of the body's upper arms. There is motion behind you and in a burst of effort, you freeze, halt all processes so that an arc of lightning doesn't incinerate Maryam's outstretched hand. She sees the sudden lack and stops herself, sinking back into her seat.

“ _I'm... I'm alr... I'll continue,_ ” A deep breath like a sigh sucked in and you do so. “ _By the time we'd dropped off one, I was... relying on instincts from Roxy, making sure they were alright. Motherly instincts, of all things. But then they dropped me here at the condo and..._ ”

Another sob and the muscle memory of a young woman caring for herself and a baby through graduate school takes over. Your grip slackens slightly into something more like an embrace and the body begins to rock, well familiar with _too much, too much_.

“ _She... she asked me if I'd be alright, even as I paid for the Uber. She was... she was serious. The entire time I thought I was taking care of them, they thought they were saving me. She tried to make me pay only my part, but I said no that I'd pay everything and they were being ridiculous, I saw the places they were staying let Roxy pay for a single ride, why were they concerned with a random woman on the side of the road don't put yourselves outforthatdidn'twantthemoneywhydidtheycarewhydidtheyriskthemselves WHY DID I FEEL SO MUCH WHEN I REALIZED-!_ ”

The cavalcade of warring emotions crashes over you and you are screaming, vomiting forth your jagged energies into the dark of night in a complete loss of control. The gratitude, the affection, the shock. The sudden, a-sollipsistic realization of the kindness of strangers and your own instinctive kindess. A soul, worked to unnatural ends. Your breathing stops and your heart pounds on. Black spots begin to gather at the sides of your vision and you need to breathe, you have to breathe, this is not healthy, this cannot continue, Roxy has to-

You realize that somewhere in your rabid, rapid-fire speech Kanaya has gotten up. In your mind’s eye you replay it, that lithe creature unfolding upwards, turning from the door slid open that separated you, walking from your balcony, leaving you alone to deal with this shock of-

A blossom of such terrible, painful warmth on your shoulder that it throws your head back in a gasping paroxysm. At the end of that gasp you realize it is a hand, that Maryam is kneeling next to you.

“Breathe.”

You do.

“Again.”

Again.

“Repeat, ad infinitum.”

You do.

A hand snakes into your vision, holding a glass of water. She'd gone up for water for you. Numbly, you take it, stare at it, your trembling claw-hand unused to a perfect shape. A soft pulse of pressure from her hand reminds you to actually drink of it. You manage a sip.

Her hand shifts, still painfully hot on your flesh, to apply upwards pressure, a cue to rise. You want to resist, but find yourself utterly drained. You allow her to lead you inside and as you leave the cold, you realize the sinister effect of it. The heat brings a clarity and sense of closure, of belonging, that you lacked outside. Even this clinical space of her's is somehow welcoming.

You are led to the hard, square couch and are pulled down beside her. An arm encircles your shoulders, even as another produces a soft knit throw. A clumsy, unpracticed motion casts it across the two of you and then your little covered space suddenly _thrumms_ with warmth as the Dolorosa sheds infra-radiation.

You swallow, lick your lips. Try to say something. Stop. Drink some more water. Wet your lips. Try again.

“I. Am not used to emotions. Let alone so many, in such quantity. It... I can't process them. They-”

“The rush is too much.”

You cast a questioning look her way, your head snapping around at her seeming prescience, but Kanaya's eyes are fixed elsewhere, a point lightyears past the wall she is staring holes in. The arm around you comes up and claw-like nails run through your hair, gently, comfortingly. They trace lines electric across your scalp, but as much as it should excite you, you find it soporific. Mutedly, you feel something akin to what you felt for the girls earlier. But the emotion discharges freely, lacking complexity or failing to take hold in your anxious psyche. Or you are already adapting to these sudden spurts of chemical madness like a base, filthy mortal.

“It's... compromising.” You finish lamely, already fading into that morphean warmth and softness of her plying manipulations.

* * *

The gyre spins and spins, and from a far enough distance it is no longer clear if it leads the falcon or the falcon hunts it down.

* * *

The damnable thing about the city is that for all its anonymity, for all its grand spectacle and great fame, it is a bloody violent and dangerous place. There are shouts of exclamation and screams, with phones coming up and out when you are grabbed and hauled bodily into an unmarked van. But thankfully, no one tries to stop them.

Them being half a dozen of the kin, covered head to toe in black gear. Not an inch of skin to be seen, eyes hidden away behind what you must take for ultra-violet blocking goggles. No simple street thugs these. As you’re thrown unceremoniously onto the floor, laptop bag torn from you and a scanner run over you. You are quickly divested of phone and purse by professional hands.

Your eyes remain focused on the sole unmoving member of the group, the one leaning forwards in a seat folded out from the van’s side.When their search is concluded and you’re allowed to rise, you address him.

“I find that I have to wonder at the mindset of the clade that swoops upon me in anti-sun gear, but in a very dilapidated internal combustion engined vehicle.”

He gives a laugh. 

“Hells, you’re not even fazed. They said you were tough as nails, though.”

“I don’t suppose I could shepherd the names of “they” from your still-functioning voicebox?”

A shake of the head, and then, “Nope. We’re just going to deliver you to the client and then go on our merry way.”

“Not even of the same clade then. Terrible, what internecine struggles will do.”

There are three vampires and two humans in this compartment and another human driving. Given their preparation, the vampires are professional killers of their own kind and should not be taken lightly. The humans too will be seasoned killers and you will not make the mistake of underestimating them.

The rest of the ride is silent and you take inventory. They are armed with only pistols and some devices that you are not familiar with, but you’re willing to bet that whatever is in those pistols will be enough to stagger you, if not kill you outright. Some wear batons that resemble cattle-prods more and you suppress a shudder. The pain of electrocution is not something that you are looking forward to experiencing, but needs must.

Eventually you arrive at your destination and after a pause the doors are thrown open. Beyond there is the emptiness of a large building, with high rafters. Some kind of warehouse or some rich clade’s underground. This does not help your chances. But in the distance you note the still open doors to it, shuttered garage-like. If you can get out fast enough, you won’t be relocated to somewhere even more advantageous to them, somewhere more unfamiliar to you.

“More than five minutes early,” the leader announces. “Secure the building for the client. Dolorosa, if you please.”

He gestures out the door. You oblige him, stepping forth. The two humans follow right behind you and as they step from the van, you reach up behind you on either side, quick as the dead, grabbing them by their gear and hurling them a dozen feet away from you and-

Tiny lances of pain spring up in your arm, gut and back. You have a bare moment to notice trailing wires before the tasers unload into you, sending you screaming and thrashing to the ground. You seize and twitch, screeching uncontrollably. At some point you manage to get your feet under you and you try to rise and run, but more darts needle into you and the pain redoubles. 

With a terrible sense of failure, you retreat into yourself, dragging yourself from the pain, sucking a breath in to try and focus away from it all, sucking… in… the electricity. Your eyes snap open suddenly at the revelation, but you still your mind and body. You have an advantage now, but it will be only momentary. Hissing, you let out your breath, and then inhale. As the air filters into your dead lungs, you imagine absorbing the tasers’ energy, just like the sun. It burns in a manner you are not accustomed to and there is a scent of cooking flesh, but you can _feel_ the stuff course through your veins. 

All of a sudden the tasers go dead. You can smell the confusion on your kidnappers and so you slump to the ground, boneless. Let them think that your nervous system has been overloaded by the shock.

“Goddammit, she had better not be dead. You two idiots, get her up, and for fuck’s sake, remember your training. This isn’t some dumb human.”

A mumble of embarrassed “yessirs” and you’re hoisted to your feet by those humans again, yanked roughly up by your elbows. This is not their day. As soon as your legs dangle freely below you, you snap your grasp down and seize them by their reproductive organs. You imagine the novas of light you are used to shedding, but with the coursing sparks of electricity instead.

The reaction is not something anyone is prepared for. 

Your handlers make no sound that is audible as their nether regions cook off, but as disgustingly satisfying as that is, it is nothing to the huge arcs of electricity that snap off you, grounding randomly and uncontrollably. The remaining taser attached to you is annihilated as it explodes in its holder’s hand. Another arc slams into the van and must set something off within because the damn thing _explodes_ , taking the group’s leader with it. Much of the sparking mess you generate is grounded, but several snaking lines hit the building’s power and everything goes dark.

Not an issue for vampires, usually. Unless they are wearing darkened goggles.

The aching of your body is thrust aside as you rush the nearest assailant. The fact that you leave your shoes behind might be comical to an outside perspective, but you can’t have the click-clack of high heels giving you away right now. In a blink you are upon him, catching his hand as it draws that horrifically large gun. You release another jolt and he spasms. It appears that he’d already switched the safety off because the pistol fires with a loud _bang_ and almost immediately there is another and your leg is peppered with sharp shrapnel. A glance downwards reveal the vampire’s leg gone from the thigh down. 

You hurl him into the burning wreck of the van, snatching the gun from his grasp. Mindfang hadn’t trained you overly much with guns, but pistols were easy enough, with your strength. The other vampires have locked on to your sounds though are aiming for you, and you realize you are backlit against a burning van. With superhuman speed you dart for the shadows as tiny explosions follow you. That explains the ruin of his leg - explosive rounds. Your flight does you the favour of letting you know how many are arrayed against you - at least eight more.

When you return fire, they re-orient on your position and your lack of training means you only dispatch one of them, ending his life in a gory torsal eruption. You may have to reconsider your stance on guns as self-defence. This is almost as effective as your usual methodologies. Speaking of which, you click empty in the magazine and toss the gun away, sprinting in the opposite direction.

Directly at one of them. He must see _something_ behind those goggles because he tracks and fires at your bobbing, weaving form. A bullet tears a searing chunk out of your shoulder and explodes a foot behind you, setting your face into a snarl. The gun goes off again right by your head, but you are already driving your hand through his stomach, diaphragm, puncturing both lungs as you claw for his heart. What death scream he could make is silenced as you rip the mess of organs from him. 

His body serves as a useful shield from another hail of explosions that tear micropockets of flesh from you and then you’re off again. Another two die before they panic and tear off their eyewear to track you better. And that is your cue to erupt in a more familiar energy. They go down screaming as their eyeballs pop and boil under your solar radiance, the skin melting like wax from eye-sockets. You casually kick one onto his stomach and walk over him to his partner, crushing his skull like an egg underfoot. 

In a fit of arrogance, you lift the last up by the neck, choking his whimpers from his dead throat. It is arrogance, of course, because he doesn’t even need to level his gun to blow two enormous holes in your torso. Thankfully, you are so close to him that the rounds blow clean through you before exploding in the concrete behind you. Pain blossoms like flowers from those seeping wounds as blood pours from either side of your body. A last snarl and you tear his head off, clamping over-large jaws over his stump and sucking for your life.

The limousine pulls in just as the last bit of the gunshot wounds close up. In stately order, another half-dozen people slide out, forming two lines, as if in an honour guard. An exasperated eye-roll is the only acknowledgement they get before you greet the sword-bearing fools with a bare flicker of light. They hiss and their skin sizzles, one or two stepping back in pain, but it’s all you can muster.

A hard swallow. This will be harder than you thought.

* * *

The breaking point and the moment of your victory comes upon the faintest glow of dawn on the horizon. You are bathed and showered, ready for Roxy’s final court date in the morning. It is just as you slip under the covers that you hear it, the high-pitched screech of sharp talons on glass. You freeze and pump more blood to your eardrums, open your mouth and pop your ears. The scratching continues, high-pitched desperation coming from the apartment’s living room balcony. Throwing the covers aside, you take up and slip on a silken gown and stalk from the room, preparing to unleash your particular brand of hell.

And then you turn into the living room and see Kanaya, collapsed helplessly against the sliding door, clawing helplessly at the handle.

In a few bare strides you hurl the thing open and kneel by the crippled vampire. She is covered in blood and dirt, with gaping rents in her fine clothes and numerous burns across her body. You grab at her arms and find them dry and papery, crinkling at your rough grasp. You are holding a corpse-thing and your lips turn into a snarl of disgust at the notion, even as weak noises of need and hurt whine from her rotting lungs.

“Come on then, you useless parasite-” you lift and immediately cease as a horrible, wet tearing noise comes from her right arm and that whole half of her sags from your grasp, accompanied by a pathetic cry of pain. The damn thing’s arm is hanging by bare inches of skin and muscle. 

“Fine. I’ll bring the damn blood to _you_.” You rise, begin to let go of the corpse and that’s when everything goes to hell.

In a serpentine, boneless motion, Maryam’s head whips around. You barely catch the gleam of too-white teeth before she sinks them viciously into your wrist. You swear and jerk away, crushing your temptation to wrench Roxy’s arm free and do more damage to it. Then it hits, the wave of soporific aphrodisiacs that is injected with a vampire’s bite.

“ _Ohhhh, fuck_ ,” you scratch out, losing control of vocal chords and legs alike. Barely managing to catch yourself against the glass doors, you puddle like your gown, sliding to a seat beside the vampire.

You heat up, even as you can _feel_ your blood being sucked in quantity from your veins. As you kick bone marrow into overdrive to produce more blood, you fancy that you can feel the vampire lapping at the wound like a cat at milk. But no, while the veil of lust descends, you realize that is exactly what she is doing, the wound closing up. You have no experience fighting these emotions and while you realize they are chemically induced, you find you don’t care. A needy, jabbing motion offers your arm at her and it’s in that moment when what critical part of your mind remains unaffected by the cocktail realizes that Kanaya Maryam is nowhere to be found.

The wide jade eyes that eat you up speak only of hunger and lust and the animal before you is only too happy to take your offering.

That lapping tongue drags its way up your forearm, sharpening monstrously until the faintest line of the ruby wells up from your too pale skin. Another pass and you are moaning, the wet thing tracing a warming path up past your elbow. She slithers up, sniffing and panting and weakly you manage to get another hand up, running fingers through short, sticky hair. Like a cat, she nuzzles into your touch, tongue licking out to taste the other limb. 

Then she’s sniffing up the gown again, and when she finds the bare flesh of your shoulder there is a growl that set the embers of your lust completely aflame. Tongue and lips make contact with your clavicle and you clutch her to you, pressing her closer in until she almost as no choice but to sink sharp pleasure into your skin again.

A hissing growl and she resists, pushing you away, pushing you down and following your descent up to the pulsing of your neck. And there she finds her prize, the thundering beat of your core. The Red Kiss is delivered and you cry out in ecstasy, legs pressing damply together and fingers bunching tightly in her hair. She hisses in approval and drinks deep from the well at your neck. Your body spasms in the godly heat of orgasm and her hiss turns keening and needy as she tastes the effects on your blood.

Her hands, pressing you down, seem to remember their other uses and part the gown to caress your breasts. They start with grazing, nail-sharp passes of your cups and your breath quickens. They tweak at stiff nipples and you gasp. Then they knead and your voice leaves you as your leg jerks up between hers. She grinds against it with a gasp of her own.

Freed of her jaws momentarily, you manage to pry her head back. A more aware woman would realize she’s letting you, your trembling arm not nearly strong enough to move the deepening olive pillar of her neck. Back, back you manage to pull her head before you cover her mouth with a kiss, all hot need to communicate your dark, carnal desires. A sinuous tongue invades your mouth before you can even begin and you melt into the arms of the beast.

Distantly, you are aware of her stripping you from the gown, but you don’t care, twitching in time to grazes and bleeding nibbles. Her lips are full and sweet, for all they taste of iron and the hunt. It is she that disengages, pressing more aphrodisiac kisses to your jaw, your neck and down your front. A cunning hand slips between your legs, even as she takes a whole tit into her sharp mouth. The noises that leave your lips are breathy, crude and beg for more.

She gives it, lithe, clever fingers sliding into your heat to wring another cry from you even as a wet pop exposes your dampened breast to chill night air. Through lidded eyes you see her jaw unhinge, mouth split inhumanly wide with a tongue a foot long lolling out. The first thrust of her fingers and brush of her tongue on your clit nearly undoes you, nearly consigns you to an early grave. Nearly, because you only possess this body and as much as you want to give in to the vampire’s sensuous touch, you retain enough of yourself to see the rising hunger, the working of muscle as the beast moves to snap killing jaws down on your flesh.

“ _NO!_ ” you cry and blast the thing from you, into the house, pink lightning driving her into the hard edges of the couch. 

_Goddammit!_ you swear, trying to purge enough of the aphrodisiac from you into your liver to form a gameplan. That was too much power, and the thing would be permanently wounded from that much en-

A savage hiss brings you up short as the body coils into a couch and rises with unconscious regality. Your bolts had slammed right into its torso, power enough to carve stone and melt steel. But the beast called Kanaya Maryam stands before you, unharmed, save for rapidly healing burns visible beneath a conflagration that was once a blouse. She licks her lips and tears the burning, disintegrating thing off. 

She takes a predatory step forward and you raise a hand in warning. Another and you let loose a cascade of sparks, enough to set a human into a coma. She lashes out, quick as the lightning and catches it all on her right arm. Your eyes widen as you watch the sparks dance across her skin, before being absorbed in tiny little burns that quickly disappear. There are no more wounds on her body, no more gaping holes. Her arms are properly attached and flexing, the muscles of a predator roiling around them. And yet in her eyes, there is still hunger. But of a very different kind.

You find that it matches your own. You are woozy from blood loss, your bones aching at their overdriven production, but before you is the perfect avatar of everything you need right now: a means to break the Horrorterror and a monster to satisfy you. 

A clenched fist. Fangs suddenly bared. Then you hurl yourselves at one another, coming together in a snarling, violent kiss.

In a tangle of limbs you crash towards the couch as you breathe microscopic stars into her and her fangs nip at your lower lip. She _sucks_ and you gasp, the writhing beast you two make toppling over onto the white leather. She lands on her back and you haul yourself up until you’re riding her face. If she feels anything like humiliation or defeat there’s no sign of it as that length of limber sex that passes for her tongue slithers into you and _licks_ just so. You shiver and tremble, driving a hand into her hair to pull her closer, deeper into you, but she slaps your hand aside and taste a rough hold of your hips. 

She lifts and flips you over and even as your eyes cross at the sudden rotation of the thing inside you, you realize her unvocalized demand. A vicious, vapourizing motion later and you’ve torn through her skirt and are kissing her hot, damp sex through darkened panties. She still tastes of iron and predators, but of need plain mammalian helplessness too.

The barrier is too much though, and somehow through the haze of bliss and trembling pleasure rippling through your middle, you manage to roll her panties down, off one leg. And as one leg clears them, you hook an arm around it, keep her spread and plant a wet, passionate kiss on her nub. The cry of pure pleasure that erupts from her throat is the most human noise you’ve heard yet. Then you drive twothreefour fingers into her and she bucks her hips, reacting to your firm pressure on her g-spot. Blunt teeth hold her clit gently immobile in a mockery of her fangs and then you suck at it, and finally finger her to beastial, screaming orgasm.

It does not last though and while you play with her clit with your tongue, you can feel her face rub along the inside of your slippery thigh. Her tongue still plays within you, but it is the sinking of her fangs into the thick lifestreams of your legs that send you over the edge, and you cum in a crying, thrashing mess, blacking out from bliss.

* * *

You are pale, and cold, and terrified.

You have ruined everything and are not worth your name.

* * *

It can’t be more than a few minutes before you come back to your senses. The sky is slightly lighter and you _ache_ in the best way. But you’re cold, and the leather of the couch is sticky and chilly besides. With a sticky, sucking sound, you peel yourself off the thing and look around.

 _Ah…_

A figure is curled up in a corner, huddled up into itself. Your lips curl up in a cruel, instinctive smile, but some damnable mortal part of you quails at what you have done, what you are about to do. Your face and soul seize, twitch in a war between immortal morality and petty sentiment. 

You _must_ finish this, but you cannot bear to.

Damn this plane. Damn your weakness, that the Host correctly identified and cast you out for. 

Damn your _affection_ for this flailing faux-mortal monster.

Your internal philosophies could war forever, but eventually you give in to practicality and try to please both sides, sure that you will ruin everything. A mortal part of you gloats in spite. You take up a familiar blanket and move wobblingly towards her. 

You shut the balcony door with a soft clack and she jerks violently from the sound. And so, slowly, gently, you lower the blanket, covering her even as she tries to retreat from it, merge with the wall. You’re fairly certain that turning to mist is not a real vampire power, but you also didn’t believe they could eat extra-planar lightnings.

You sit apart from her, regarding her tented figure. Idly, you reach out and pull the long-discarded gown towards you, donning it.

When it becomes apparent she is not going to say anything, you begin,

“I could say that this isn’t your fault, that it was only natural, but you and I know it isn’t true.”

A tenseness, suddening flaring, visceral hatred.

“But I… respect... you too much to lie to you.” A pause. “Your kind feeds off blood, but all you have been consuming is basically bread and water. You wanted, needed more.”

The hatred turns inwards, collapsing under the pressure of failed duty. You shudder at the familiarity of the feeling. You reach out a hand. Withdraw it in uncertainty. Reach it out once more in solidarity.

“And I exploited that. It’s ok.”

A snarl and the blanket is torn aside, and Kanaya glares daggers at you.

“In what possible way is the infidelity that I have just manifested here in any way, shape or form on this planet any way acceptable?!”

You meet her gaze, unmocking, unflinching. Just cold, hard, heavenly judgement. You can almost feel the pressure of the halo, the anchor at the crown of this host’s head as you stare at her, summoning what… _uncaring_ you can manage. An immortal portion of you weeps that it cannot remember, cannot conceive of the proper word.

She is unused to this, the true regard of what remains of your soul. To her credit, she does not weep, and barely flinches. Instead, she seems to fight an unnatural curiosity, to fight the urge to look closer. 

You approve. 

“Because you are unfairly bound. You lash out, seek freedom. The horrorterror requires more worship than you can possibly muster, and you require a tribute of a kind she can possibly give.

“You lash out.

“Break free.”

Quiet.

You regard her, head now between her legs, blanket pulled over her, desperately trying not to hyperventilate. You come to a decision and throw a part of you away. Uncaring of dignity, you scoot closer, placing your warmth between her and the cold light of dawn. She does not flinch from the arm around her.

Quietly, she begins to cry. And you hold her. The wedge is driven deep enough, and all will crumble before the end. You need not act so much the angel.You need only be the one to suffer endlessly for it all.

“Ro- Ro-” she sobs and your heart clenches. “Roxy, oh god, why did I do this, this will break her heart.”

What afflicts your heart is no twinge, but real heartbreak, real self-loathing. You swallow it, beat it down and fight back tears of your own. Damn this host, this shell, this chemical hell. 

“She won’t know. We’ll feel like any other wild night, and she’ll believe that I ignored her wishes. If she delves deeper, I’ll misguide her. She needn’t suffer with you and… Rose. Better that only you and I know.”

_Better that only I burn for it._

Another crying sob, and the… the woman beside you curls up into a rocking, self-hating ball. You hush and murmur at her, plying her with noises that, perversely, come from the depths of Roxy’s memories. You don’t know how much you help, but eventually the crying dies down, as the sun comes up. In that dun light, with what strength you can summon, you raise her up, shuffle her to her bedroom.

You lead her into the master bathroom to clean the remaining blood and dirt from her. You turn the shower on, run it hot, and turn to leave. Your arm catches on her hand, or perhaps it is the other way around. Either way, the only way she discards the blanket is by your side, with your gown. 

You wash her, as gently and clinically as you can, fastidiously ignoring the flare of lust at her wet, naked body. In your hands the loofah scrubs roughly at crusted blood and slick fingers brush over darker bruises and barely-healed scars. With your blood running through her, she is darker, a deeper hue. It takes you a minute to realize her full-body blush, what must amount to reciprocated arousal. Oh, how she must hate herself. 

Then you lead her out of her shower and into a towel, pleased that she can manage to dry herself. You manage the same, even as blood loss and energy fatigue begin to take you.

Like some obscene mockery of a mother, you tuck her in, loading heavy quilt over naked form, laying a dry towel under her head. Her gaze isn’t glassy or lost, just ever-hurting. Distractedly, you brush bangs from her dark face and when she turns eyes like young jade on you, you deliver a kiss to her lips before you know what you are doing. She does not resist, and before the end, returns it.

* * *

You wake up, slowly, wrongly, and aching. _Oh goddammit, Roux, what did you do now?_

_Roxy, I need you to listen to me._

There is something in the angel’s voice that scares you, jolts you awake.

_Kanaya was attacked last night, by other vampires._

_Fuck, is she-_

_She’ll be alright. I barely got to her after a night out-_

_You shou-!_

_I know! I know, alright? I am sorry._ There is a welling of regret from deep within that takes your breath away and you’re shut the fuck up. Roux means business - honest business. _I… when I got to her, she was… ravenous. I didn’t get to the bottles in time and she drank from me- us._

_Hell with that, is she alright?_

_She’s recovering in her rooms, but Roxy, you CANNOT blame this on-_ You manage to bark a crude laugh as you roll off the bed, your aching bones hurting far more than usual.

_Blame? Her? She did what she had to to survive I’m guessing. Why the hell would I blame her._

_That’s… that’s good._

Your eyes narrow. _You are acting hella strange, Roux._

Hesitation. Reluctance.

_I made a critical error. What foresight I have did not show me this and I very nearly compromised both our lives by dismissing the paras- the woman. I apologize._

_Huh. So it takes a near-death experience to get through the boatload of B.S. ego you lug around? Good to know._

You can almost feel her scowl.

_The Duena human has instructions to make you steak and eggs, with a side of some dark green for breakfast. We lost a LOT of blood last night._

_Yeah, I can fucking feel that, thanks. Do you think Kanaya would mind if I looked in on her?_

_Just don’t embarrass the girl._

_Girl? I thought she was a woman. Getting affectionate in your tenure here, Roux?_

Sullen silence meets your wisecrack.


	5. Katzenjammer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is ONLY to be read after [All Drama Has Its Roots In the Past](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2518979) and before ██████████████.

That first night, you lay awake, shivering in a corner, eyes wide in panic, unnecessary breath coming in short, terrified gasps. The scale of your failure, of your betrayal unfolded before you and the immensity of it paralyzed you and nearly drove you mad. Straining for some semblance of peace, your mind grasped in the dark and latched onto that final recourse of sentient beings.

You imagined a gun in your mouth, cold steel tasting so like blood and yet so alien. A pull of the trigger would do enough damage even to you for blessed death to claim you once more. 

You imagined calling a cleaning unit just before hurling yourself off the top of the tower. The concrete-shattering impact of your immortal body would render that selfsame form paste.

You imagined a warm tub, a locked door, a sharp knife and enough wine to thin your blood to water. The knife slicing through corpse-tough flesh and spilling your final tie with this world.

But that last is a lie.

There are so many, so very many things that tie you to this world. On your best day you can almost feel them twine about you, thread between your fingers, giving you purpose in this world. They are made of smiles, of tearful gazes, whispered thanks. They are a form of sustenance all of their own. But on days like these they feel like chains holding you to the deepest abyss of the sea floor. Gray, sucking things that leave you empty and afraid, tearing and rending your clothes and flesh in guilt and self-loathing. 

No matter their form, they are there still. 

And so you spend the night cold and alone, pressed into a formless shape by the weight of your duties and of betrayal you still cannot bear to countenance.

Come the light of dawn, you wake and unfold, a creaking, withered thing greeting the day in the comfortable habit of routine. Slipping out of a ruined gown, you drink of the sun’s wan light and slowly banish the cold, the stiffness of your limbs. Soon, a faint glow pulses beneath your skin, an artefact of your existence that you make no effort to hide, for once. 

There is work to be done, your duty to be upheld.

And a phone call to make.

* * *

The car pulls up in front of the Zahhak Tower at the stately pace of New York traffic. Few pay attention, though that number goes up as you step out. Long limbs unfold and what grace you can lay claim to carries you out of the luxurious confines of the car. You want nothing more than to bury yourself under a pile of bottles and pliant flesh and worse, but you cannot afford any of that showing. So the figure that steps out from that car is the The Dolorosa. 

You present yourself at the reception, all clicking and clacking of heels through the echoing hall of what passes as the first floor and resembles a cathedral built of the first five. It is a gleaming edifice of black and white marble, chased in cobalt blue. To the overdressed security officer you say,

“Kanaya Maryam, for Equius Zahhak.” 

To his credit, his eyes widen only slightly.

“Of course, madam. Please wait while I call for your escort.”

You cock a single, delicately arched eyebrow.

“I wasn’t aware that these corridors were so perilous.”

“Sorry madam, no one sees Lord Zahhak without an escort. I’m sure you understand.”

Lord, indeed. You do understand, and so does this human, apparently. You wonder how free Zahhak is with his information. But perhaps this is a particularly trusted individual. That would account at least somewhat for the well-tailored uniform.

“Tell me, officer, do you know who does Zahhak Tower’s uniforms?”

“The Tower is handled by GK, however the Lord’s Guard are outfitted by his personal tailor.”

“Mm. I shall have to have him commended to me.”

Surprise. 

“I would have thought that Madam saw to her own wardrobe.”

“Often enough. But sometimes It’s just wearying and I could do with some surprise. Naturally, it would have to be a skilled and trusted hand. Of course, I could also learn something about... exotic materials.”

A wry nod. The suit, as you suspected, offers some manner of protection. You’ve worked with kevlar and spider silk, but what the man in front of you is wearing is next generation.

“Ah, Madam’s escort has arrived,” and he holds out a hand in the direction of the elevators.

You turn to take them in. And yes, you should have expected as much.

Stalking towards you is the young lady from several evenings ago. Her gait is stiff and reminds you of nothing so much as an affronted cat, but you suppose you can’t blame her. R- your party sent her off in some disgrace. 

“Ah, Miss Leijon was it?’

“Dolorosa,” she returns, only barely managing to keep her tone above a growl. “Please follow me.

Her passage is silent, a quiet, padding thing, quite at odds with your own noisy, clicking tread. You’d wonder if it irritates her, but instead are reminded of the reading you’d done on that evening past. As the elevator closes on you, you ask,

“I was under the impression clade Leijon was wiped out several years ago in one of our internecine wars.”

“Our?” she bites out. “I wasn’t aware you had a clade to suffer them.”

“No, I suffer them all myself.”

She snorts, but continues, “We were. Equius took in the survivors.”

“But you’re human.”

“I was raised to be Leijon. I _would be_ Leijon at my twentieth.”

She growls in truth now, hackles all raised like her clades’ namesake. It is almost amusing how committed she is to the practice of imitation. Almost, because it is sad.

“And so instead you will be Zahhak.”

Her head whips around, her expression a mix of alarm, outrage and suspicion. You wave it off.

“Please, it wasn’t hard to piece together. The Guard below, your own presence and… devotion to Zahhak. Apparently he practices quite similar rearing practices.”

“Eq- _Lord_ Zahhak,” she takes the opportunity to correct you and you nearly bark a laugh, “doesn’t _rear_. He recruits from trusted attendants.”

“Similar enough. Both methods build an army.”

Her gaze is now verging on pure, spitting rage.

“And what’s it to-”

 _Ding_. Sixty floors certainly flew past quickly. Leijon schools her face into something resembling calm and clears her throat. Noisily and entirely without what grace she displayed before.

“We have arrived. Please be sure to treat Lord Zahhak with the respect he deserves.” _And not how you’ve previously,_ you fill in on your own.

The doors to this tower’s penthouse are huge oaken things, so old that the very smell of them sends a shiver of reverence down your spine. This is ancient wood, from another side of the world, but even under the varnish and invasive dust, you smell its forest. Whoever worked this wood loved it the way only a craftsman could. You feel a pang of regret that your works are less likely to survive the millennia. 

Leijon pushes them open with strength you can scarcely credit her frame and the light from the hallway filters into the deep darkness beyond.

Ah, ostentation.

Your eyes adjust quickly and take in the dark splendour of the place. If the first floor took up five, this one takes up at least three, with enormous, stolid columns holding it up. Some of the clients you’ve visited claimed that you could tell a vampire’s Age from their surroundings. You are not sure if you believe that, and besides, you’re not knowledgeable enough to identify the style outside Romanesque.

A figure at the end of the… room? hall? Turns to face you. Leijon leads you up and between the door and his person it becomes clear exactly how huge this vampire is. Over seven feet tall and probably four times the breadth of you, Equius Zahhak looks more like mythical Hephaestus than the vampiric ideal. The Zahhak parasite affects its host’s physical stature more than any other and it showed. The man had to have an excellent tailor, as the suit he was squeezed into still fit well and flattered him. 

You’d never been a fan of the American suit, but you can’t imagine another style on this slab of meat.

“My Lord Equius Zahhak, may I present Kanaya Maryam, the Dolorosa.”

You step into a practiced curtsey, something polite and graceful, but that allows you to keep your eyes on him, if not on his gaze. A moment as he takes you in. Then a slow, gracious nod.

“I welcome you into my halls Dolorosa. It has been a great many years since they have been lit.”

“Something that it would appear can be corrected, as it so fortuitously happens.”

“Mmm. I would hazard that from your communique you are not here because you have come to your senses on your position?”

“That is, perhaps, more antagonistically phrased than I would have put it, but no. The queue was established to ensure maximum coverage of the planet, and I will not endanger lives or the great game for a point of privilege, however well earned.”

A touch of emphasis lends weight and sincerity to that last phrase, and you can see Leijon tense and lean forward, before relaxing. 

“The impertinence of a youngling dictating these matters to us aside, I imagine you have what you believe to be a good reason for this change of heart.”

“Indeed.” Your eyes cut to Leijon. “Before touching on that, I would beg that this audience be moved to a more private venue. Ideally your most private.”

Zahhak’s stony face cracked, an eyebrow rising at the use of “beg” from your lips. Even so, he holds out a hand to still Leijon.

“Nepeta is one of my dearest and trusted retainers. There is nothing that cannot be said before her.”

“I do not doubt her loyalty or trustworthiness, only her discretion.”

Nostrils flare. “And on what basis do you slander her so?”

“The basis that antagonizing a vampire and a sorceress, both of whom happen to be celebrity figures, at a public venue is a dumb-ass idea.”

His head rotates on the pillar of his neck like so much marble, like a bust grinding to bear down on Leijon.

“I have heard naught about this.”

Nepeta Leijon bristles, but stands her ground. She meets his eyes for all of a few seconds, and then studies the floor.

“She, ah, she disrespected you, Equius. Sorry, I just… lost my cool.”

He is quiet for a moment, and anon his head grinds back to you, visibly disappointed. 

“The Masquerade was not broached?”

“It was not.”

He turns, and strides for a corner of the room, beckoning you to follow. Behind, you can barely hear the uncertain tread of the human. He leads you to another set of massive doors, gently pushing one massive portal open and holding it for you.

You nod your thanks and enter, pointedly not looking over your shoulder. The human’s steps stop abruptly and then the door shuts behind the two of you. You look about, finding yourself in a small receiving room, with plenty seating, arranged around a tall, plush chair by a fireplace. Ancient furniture, a mismatched scattering from through the centuries holds paraphernalia. And along the back wall, massive curtains. 

You pause before a seat opposite that massive, blue felted chair. A nod at the curtains.

“May I?”

He tenses, surprised, almost halting himself as he gently lowers his bulk into the massive chair.

“You would freely concede that boon?”

“Again, I would prefer to call it a sign of good faith. I have no doubt that such a dutiful _lord_ will want as much of his clade seen to as possible, later.”

A wry smile, quickly smothered by solemnity. 

“Then by all means, Dolorosa. Cast some light into these chambers.”

You go to the curtains, those heavy velvet things, and note how they pool on the ground, lap up on the sides, and descend from a recess in the ceiling. Multiple, overlapping layers ensure no solar radiation penetrates. The material is soft beneath your hands, signs of its care evident. 

And then with a deep breath in and other senses outstretched, you fling the curtains open, allowing the morning sun to penetrate into the gloom.

A soft gasp from behind you that you pretend to not have heard. You give Zahhak a moment to compose himself as you drink in the sun. It is easy; you have spent too long crying in the dark.

But you are here for a reason, and eventually you must turn, and take your place. Zahhak is leaned back in the chair, head back, basking in the light. Tiny muscular spasm flit across his body and his eyes are clenched shut in… well. Perhaps you underestimated the effect the time between sun-viewings had on the ancient vampire. You make a note that you must remember your primary purpose in these trying times.

As you enter into the small circle sketched by the chairs he remembers himself and shifts uncomfortably. 

“Now then, what has brought you here, Dolorosa?”

“Shortly after Nepeta delivered your message, I encountered a human… scientist, for lack of a better term, though I suspect that he is a dabler in the arcane as well.”

“For a breed that has been steadily dying out for the past millennium, you seem to encounter them with improbable frequency.”

“A personal failing, I assure you.”

“I was given to understand that the sorceress was a… close companion.”

“Correct, though I might question how you know that.”

“Please. Respect for tradition does not preclude the ability to live in the modern world,” He reaches into a breast pocket and withdraws a tablet, the thing looking more like a phone in his hands.

“Ah, the joys of paparazzi. In any case, situations change and I still have a crisis to explain.”

“Of course. Forgive my impropriety.”

“Of course. The scientist was hostile to my companions and subdued us by most heinous means. Vampires with Mindfang’s powers.”

Zahhak straightens. “That is both heartening and problematic. We believed the Serket strain on the verge of extinction. To have it in circulation, but with a human…”

You shake off your shock at the name. _You knew the strain was called Serket in ancient times. Don’t let mention of Vriska’s name distract you._ With purpose you ward yourself from the shock. 

“I attempted to deal with them in the most expedient method possible, but there arose a problem.

“The vampires resisted shed sunlight.”

Zahhak stops breathing.

“I was able to annihilate them eventually, thankfully after the scientist had revealed that-”

“-he has managed to splice cladestrains together,” the giant grinds out. The arms of the chair he is seated in creak dangerously as massive palms grip them tightly. The Lord of Zahhak is no fool and his mind already races along the paths that this information paint on the future.

His eyes, bright cobalt splinters in a pale olive face, flash up and meet yours. 

“You come here to bargain for a means to stop this man.”

“Quite. You are the only North American power that I know can buy me and a small team permission to conduct offensive actions in Europe and elsewhere.”

“You believe him to be based in Europe?”

“Yes. Somewhere on the continent if not Switzerland.” 

“You have this team?”

“No, sir, I was hoping that-”

“You will be provided one. You have done well this day, Dolorosa.” He rises, his immense frame seeming to bulge even further, a grotesque mockery of humanoid form. Faint traces of blood sweat bead his brow and you wonder at what is happening in his metabolic system right now to elicit _that_ kind of reaction. 

“Thank you, Lord Zahhak,” you say for lack of anything else to say. “Now, I believe there is the matter of your clade’s sun-viewing…?”

He waves you off, pacing. “That will be handled. I, ah… heh. I believe I will have my people call your people, is that how it is said?”

A surprised quirking of lips flits past your face. “Exactly so.”

“Good. Concern yourself with that no longer. So long as you are confident that you can handle a large party, Zahhak Towers will handle the remainder. We need to focus on eradicating this… this… _heretic_ ,” he spits the word in disgust.

“I must admit, Equius- if I may call you that?”

He stops short, glares at you in affront. And then gives a single, harsh guffaw. 

“Why not? You behave every inch the aristocrat, even if you haven’t earned your place. Given your loyalty to the kin, I am willing to extend such pleasantries, say, on credit.”

“Your generosity knows no bounds, Lord Zahhak,” you murmur, with only a bare touch of bite. “But as I was saying, I did not expect to be taken so seriously and my idea received so warmly.”

“Yes, well, you are far, far too young to remember the last time this nonsense was attempted.”

A blink, as you follow his agitated form. 

“I was not aware we had access to such technology until recently.”

“Indeed. Centuries ago, it was an Italian alchemist that committed this atrocity. She had access to real sorcery and the trust of several clades. By the time we purged her raving mutants, a full two bloodlines had been extinguished in the space of a decade.”

“The Blood War,” you whisper. “I had, the Dolorosa had no idea it was caused by this…”

A grunt from the huge man. 

“Perhaps not caused by. There were a great many factors leading up to that calamity. Rising populations, exploding trade routes, the brief resurgence of magic before Lundrhem… In any case they all gave us cover to hide the fact that bloodlines had becoming ferally tainted from the Dolorosa.”

Your skin prickles at the phrase. It has been been a long time since you’ve read that term. It comes up in Porrim’s notes from time to time, a sort of boogeyman of the clades. That which prompted the early hunts in Sumeria, Samarkand and China. Have the clades been keeping other recessions into feral behaviour a secret from the Dolorosa?

“That was three centuries ago, and even what technology humans had then was nearly enough to cause us serious threat. In these advanced times? Were vampires to rampage across the globe? I doubt our species would last so much as that decade.”

The massive man stares out the window, hands clenched behind his back. You swallow as his bulk turns towards you.

“Make no mistake, Dolorosa, this is a problem on a global scale, even before putting it in the hands of a human sorcerer.”

You find that you agree, particularly given the disposition of that sorceror.

* * *

The sunviewing is held a week later, the soonest Equius could gather his clade. Given that Zahhak is spread across the world, it is a testament to his reach and power that they all arrived in time. The roof of Zahhak Tower houses a massive, tiled balcony, and the event is held there. For all the rest of New York can tell, it is just another high society party on just another weekend.

Your blood is singing in your veins, the sheer amount of the sun’s rays that you’ve absorbed driving you to something like a high, or a mild alcohol buzz. You are fairly certain that a Zahhak woman is flirting with you, but her language is even more stilted and circumspect than yours and Equius’ and besides, she looks like she could tear you in half. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but you are too focused shedding excessive radiation into the UV-proof boots that you are wearing that you don’t think that particular distraction would be welcome right now.

“Dolorosa,” a quiet, grudgingly deferent voice. “Lord Zahhak wan- would like me to introduce you to some… prospectives.”

“Ah?” you turn to your conversation partner. “I beg your pardon, but I would be remiss not to heed our host this afternoon. Perhaps we shall see each other later…?”

It takes a severely repressed person to be flustered by the likes of Kanaya Maryam but the woman stutters out a polite affirmation. Cute, you suppose. In a great dane sort of way. You smile, shaking your head internally and follow Nepeta. You crush a stab of guilt that comes out of thin air.

“Prospective… what?” You ask the smaller woman. Smaller, ha. She is the smallest person here, behind you. Zahhak tends to huge.

“Team members. The best of our security forces are in attendance today. In the interest of getting this expedition on the road as soon as possible, we thought it best for you to get as much information as possible.”

You note the ‘we.’ 

“Not a sentiment that I can disagree with, but surely you are aware that I am not… militarily inclined.”

She snorts, “Yeah, I made that point, but Equius insisted that you get to make the selection.”

“Mmm. Well, you certainly seem to understand these things better than I, at least. I will meet them, but perhaps defer to your judgement.”

Nepeta looks at you strangely, but seems to go along with it. Over the course of the afternoon, you are introduced to several security personnel, both obvious and clandestine. They are mostly human, but include a few kin. At the end of it all, you ask Nepeta for her choices, and thankfully they leave out the one kin that you got a decidedly hostile vibe from.

“Those eight will be awaiting you in a Zahhak facility tomorrow.” Despite his bulk, Equius moves as silently as any vampire. “They will have orders to obey you in all things, with Nepeta as your second.”

“What?!” Nepeta hisses, “You can’t-”

“This is far too important for me not to have a personal representative present, Nepeta. Behave with appropriate decorum and professionality and we will discuss a date for your ascension.”

Nepeta goes very still, eyes huge. Her mouth works.

“Um. Ok.”

You frown.

“I am not one to interfere in internal clade matters, but bribing a youngling with the promise of turning strikes me as slightly immoral.”

Nepeta turns on you, teeth bared, hands flexing into claws, but Equius holds his hand up.

“I understand how that may seem to be the situation, but rest assured I have spent the last several years convincing Nepeta that acts of stupid bravery and loyalty will not convince me to raise her up before she is ready. The successful prosecution of this campaign will simply demonstrate her ability to lead and and take orders simultaneously.”

He regards you seriously, “To that effect, I trust you will find it within yourself to trust her with more than mere grunt work.”

“Well,” you begin, relishing the glum look Nepeta is already giving you, “Considering that I have already acquiesced to her selections of this team, I think I can manage that.”

Eyebrows go up in that craggy cliff face. “I see. Perhaps you will be a more effective combination than I have been lead to believe.”

You curtsy, because that seems to be the thing to do, and have to focus to stop from falling over as the solar high rushes to your head. Nepeta bows, rolling her eyes at your clumsiness, and Equius takes his leave.

By the end of the evening, you are about ready to faint. Taking one of your new team _Adam, I think his name is?_ aside, you ask him to inform you as soon as the last kin has been shepherded indoors. While he goes to see about that task, you say your goodbyes to the assembled Zahhak as they wander towards the elevator, consciously not looking for the bulky amazon from before. 

You bow and make your curtseys and handclasps and the moment Adam signals that the last of the kin have entered the elevator, you grab a chair and collapse into it, releasing your iron control over arcane biology and the roof explodes into light as you slouch into your seat. A groan manages to escape you.

“Fuck, give us a warning, next time you do that!” Nepeta shouts rubbing at her eyes. Languidly, you raise a hand and extend a single finger at the cocky little shit.

* * *

The following night is cold and dark, you having spent yourself in that nigh-rapturous explosion. Your control slipped and, faced with your cresting guilt, caused you to purge all your stored energies. So between cold sheets you toss and turn, your corpse-cold body insufficient to warm them. Too used are you to the heat of another body, heat you can store and turn outward again to mutual benefit and joy.

You fight and conquer the urge to call Duena to you.

You fight that selfsame urge to hire someone into your bed. In that, you fail, and when you manage to rise the next morning, sated, aching and warm, it is through detangling too many limbs.

* * *

You are quite pleased by the cordial manner in which Equius sends the address of the Zahhak safehouse to your haemofont. Perhaps the aged traditionalists can be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity after all.

You show at the brownstone in the middle of the day, punching in the code provided. The door buzzes and lets you in with an industrial _chunk_. The first floor is nondescript, furnished with quite frankly cheap second-hand furniture, but you find the elevator in short order. Another code, another buzz and you descend into the depths of New York’s bedrock. 

The air grows chill and clammy with moisture, but there is no scent of mold or anything else that suggests life. The elevator gives a ding and releases you into cold steel environs, a long hallway with doors on either side and a massive one on the end. In the distance, your enhanced hearing picks up the clatter and voices of activity.

Shouldering your bag and case, you move to the massive, obviously-military blast door. A quick check of your documentation reveals another code, which you enter and the massive doors part just enough to admit you. 

The sounds beyond die off.

In the room are nine figures, all clad in dark blue sweats, a stark difference to your diaphanous white gauzery. Seven men and two women turn to face you. They are in the middle of sparring and range practice, and when Nepeta shouts and waves her hand in a circle above her head, they jog up, attentive.

“Alright you fucking scrubs, this is your CO for the foreseeable future, the Dolorosa. Those of you up on your kin history knows what that means, those of you who aren’t, say hello to vampire Jesus.”

You quirk an eyebrow at the diminutive woman. That was possibly the most creative, warped description of your position you’d ever heard.

They are looking at you expectantly. You clear your throat.

“Well, overblown estimations of my importance aside, what have you been told of this mission?”

“We’re gonna go fuck up some asshole making mutants, Ma’am,” a young black man says.

“Certainly that will be part of it. Is that the extent of their briefing, Nepeta?” The girl nods. “Very well. Certainly, killing mutants will be part of it. But you should be aware - these mutants have the unfortunate advantage of likely having the Dolorosa strain in them as well, so they will be immune to solar radiation.”

Silence, and several falling faces.

“This, naturally, makes them an even higher priority threat. While I am normally loathe to say such things as ‘the mission comes before your lives’ there are fewer threats to this world more dire than this one.” You know of at least two, but there’s no reason to further demoralize the troops.

“On top of that, I am aware that the current fad in anti-kin warfare is ultravioluminescent rounds. For obvious reasons, those will not form a part of our arsenal. Thankfully, what the games from my youth would call ‘aggravated’ damage will still work, so fear not.”

A hand goes up. “Should the kin on this team be worried about solar discharge like, ah, what you can do?”

You focus on him. Jorge, you think. His size is not yet at Zahhak levels, but you think you recall that he is a new induction. 

“We can’t be sure. I recommend full UV wear, in any case, until we determine what their capabilities are. So far Serket and Dolorosa combinations have been noted, but more may yet present themselves.”

A rough roll of whispers, swears and asides. 

“Oi! You’ve all been trained to resist Serket, and by one of the oldest members of that clade! Stop being little pissbabies and suck it up.”

You want to ask who that Serket was, but you keep your focus. “Lord Zahhak has promised intel within the week, so consider that time to prepare and work out your strategies. Leijon will act as… tactical command? and my second, so questions during missions should be directed at her. Otherwise, I am in overall command, so please come to me with any overarching concerns.”

“Yeah, I’ve got an overarching concern - why’s a fucking fashionista leading us?” snarls a hispanic woman. 

“Oh good,” you mutter glumly, “I was hoping to get that out of the way.”

But it’s Nepeta that answers you, if somewhat stiffly, “The Dolorosa was trained by Spinneret Mindfang and has-”

“Thank you Nepeta, but I think I can answer this myself.”

She looks at you doubtfully, but doesn’t interrupt. 

“Ramirez, is it? Front and centre please.”

The stocky woman moves smoothly through the parting crowd. A blunt face and solid muscles ripple as she folds her arms in front of her. You let the bag and case on your shoulder drop, and they make a too-heavy _thud_ as they hit the ground. The assembled group’s eyes dart to the pile and then back to you.

“What is your title or rank, Ramirez?” you ask quietly.

“We don’t get titles until we get chosen. And it’s Officer.”

“Very well then, Officer,” you say, voice dropping even further. “Attack me.”

There’s a moment of uncertainty, then the woman explodes into motion, rushing for you. She looks to be going low, to tackle you into the ground. You very nearly fall for it, but correct just as she plants her foot and launches herself upwards, coming flying for your face. Reflexes that you have spent far too long honing snap into place and with the minimum of effort you raise your knee, poised to intercept her face.

But she’s faster than you assume and manages to hurl herself to the side, roll, and come back at you, before you can plant that foot again. _She’s fast_ , you think, pleased. She might not be able to keep up with kin, but she comes close. This time, she does go low and commits to it. Of your options, you choose the most ostentatious. You lower yourself as well, catch her charge on your thighs, instead of through your shins. You catch her and then bodily lift her off the ground by her waist.

To her credit, there’s no cry or exclamation, she just clamps her legs on either side of your head to prevent the execution of the move. But she’s still thinking of you as a lesser kin and it’s not tight enough. Not nearly. You complete the power bomb, but not as Spinneret showed you. You just hurl her back into the crowd, her pants dragging roughly along your face and catching on your claws. 

She crashes into them, and you hold the sweats up like a trophy. Over the general laughter, you announce,

“I hope the rest of you are better trained in how to take on kin in close combat.”

They are, and at your suggestions you spend the next several hours being stuck in locks and holds, having your limbs dislocated, intentionally and unintentionally, by the team and yourself as they demonstrate their understanding humanoid physiology and how to use that against vampires. By the time you feel like your sweat is going to turn to blood, most are retiring for the night. From your place on a practice mat, you pant and stare at the bare ceiling.

A blood pack is tossed your way, which you just manage to catch. Jorge and another kin approach you, sitting cross-legged in front of you. 

“Hello, Jorge, and…? My apologies, the sunviewing was not the best time for me to learn names.”

“Oh yah, don’ worry ‘bout it, eh?” The thick drawl is unlike anything you’ve ever heard. Only the eh gives you context: some manner of Canadian. Zahhak’s reach is long. “I’m Bill.”

“Bill and I were wondering… I mean, you’re doing all right against the humans, better than a lot of us thought. But what if you need to defend yourself against other vampires?”

“Ah.” You nod. “You want to test me. Unfortunately, Bill and Jorge, while I would be happy to spar with you to improve, truly testing me against kin is a singularly lethal proposition.”

They look puzzled. 

“This is me fighting non-lethally. Would it hold against other kin?”

“Not… really,” draws out Bill. He looks faintly embarrassed on your behalf to be admitting it.

“Correct. Non-lethal combat is much harder than it looks, and much harder than just, ah, ‘straight up killing a bitch,’ I believe Mindfang called it.”

The pair bark in laughter and seem slightly more at ease. “Even with the no-sun thing?”

“Even with the no-sun thing,” you confirm. You remember something and lean back to scrabble at your case, dragging it over until you can pop the latches and draw out the weapon within.

“Wow.”  
“Holy shit.”

“I trust you are familiar with branches of Zahhak that are out of favour?”

“Uh, probably.”

“Horuss Zahhak contacted me through the proper channels years ago, and some time ago I was able to arrange a sunviewing with his branch.”

The pair look at you with uncertainty and more respect. Equius’ older relative fell out of favour a century ago, but hostilities are virtually non-existent these days.

“And as a parting gift, he gave me this, in recognition of ‘both my horticultural and political talents’.”

You remove the device. It is shaped like a rapier, but much thicker besides. Entirely made of dull grey gunmetal, you’d had plans to decorate it, but in this context, the shade is perfect. It has no proper blades, one side being a flat and solid pane, and the other housing the primary method of harm. A rotating chain of super-hardened titanium teeth peeks out.

The Zahhaks in front of you lean in for a closer look, and so you grip the haft, wrap two fingers around the trigger and gun the thing. The pair scrabble back as the chainsword roars to life, the destructive teeth whirring with hungry speed.

After a period of recovery, Jorge begins to laugh.

“Now that’s aggravated damage!”

* * *

Dolorosa, greetings and respects. Zahhak agents have tracked Lucier to the United Kingdom and located several shell companies associated with him. Most likely physical target is at these coordinates. 

* * *

_Manchester, day 1_

You’ve been on the receiving end of these sorts of joint human/vampire raids before, albeit non-lethally. Well, intended as non-lethal, anyways. But it is interesting to see them being planned, assessed, drilled. There’s not nearly enough time for proper drilling, but you file the planning and deconstruction away for your own defense. You are also a valuable resource in this regard; you’ve yet to be taken down. 

“Nepeta,” you say before the last drill, “There’s something I would like you to pass on to the soldiers.”

“What, not even gonna give them your own pep talk?” she nearly sneers at you, looking up from a phone encased in some absurd purple and green cat case. 

“Mmm. Perhaps I will. Regardless of any inspirational talk I may or may not engage in prior to the execution of the mission, the input I have is regarding the largest weakness of these attacks.”

Now she does sneer, “I thought I was in tactical command here.”

“Certainly. It is up to you how to implement this strategic consideration - this team is too reliant on centralized command.”

“Yeah, because you can tell that from three drills and some time on the mat.”

“No, I can tell that because I have single-handedly dismantled sixteen similar teams by targeting identical weaknesses,” you snarl, flashing fangs and eyes. Leijon doesn’t flinch, but you can see her eyes go wide at your sudden assertiveness. “Of which at least two were Zahhak or Zahhak associated.”

She goes still, licking her lips. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“I do not care,” you say, returning your face to stately immobility. “Make the necessary adjustments. The easiest way to disrupt a well-oiled machine is the removal of key parts. Build redundancy. Encourage initiative. Do as you see fit, but solve this problem.”

She scowls, but jams her phone into a pocket and strides off.

* * *

Manchester is a massacre. What guards Scratch had at the outpost were no match for a Zahhak team. They went through the opposition like a hot knife through butter as you followed up in the rear, staying out of everyone’s way with your subdued guards. They wanted in on the action, you could tell. But alas, you were “too important to risk” which was likely Leijon’s way of keep your out of her hair.

You step into an office off the warehouse and suppress a shiver at the raw, splattered scent of blood. An effort of will is required to crush the need to lick your lips and as you step over a puddle of gore, you swallow the product of serious salivation. Jorge is leaning on a human, his leg thoroughly lacerated, while sucking on a blood pack. You give him a professional nod, pleased that he seems to be the only serious injury. Another man is hunched over a workstation, tablet connected, watching text scroll intermittently.

“Status, Mr… Lee, was it?”

He looks up and nods, “Yes ma’am. We got here fast enough post breaching the building that they haven’t been able to erase anything, or so much as disconnect the site from the-”

A sudden scrolling of red text and he swears. “I guess that was asking too much. We must have tripped alarms _somewhere_.”

“Well. They know we’re coming now. Let us hope this data trove is enough to plan out next moves.”

* * *

It should be. There is, in fact, too much information to be easily digestible. As the team retires for the night into the safehouse, you, Leijon and Lee review the data. You note with some concern that Jorge hauls his supporter into his room, fangs bared. But between the nonchalance of everyone else and the sheer glee on the human’s face, you let that slide.

“There’s absolutely too much. Wrap it up and send it back home for analysis, there’s no way we’re dragging through this.” Nepeta tosses her tablet on the table, her head following shortly with a groan.

You have little idea of what you’ve covered so far, this sort of data crunching far beyond you.

“Mr. Lee, how long until that data is processed by… whomever?” you hedge.

A shrug. “Less than a week, if we’re lucky.”

“That is not a particularly encouraging timeline.”

“Hey, I’m not some hacker, I’m just a merc who knows his way around a command line. They could have it done in a couple of days for all I know.”

You sigh. “My apologies. Either way, we should begin to move on the next objective. Almost all of these are on the continent. I suggest relocating to Amsterdam while we wait on word.”

Leijon frowns, chewing on a lip. “Zahhak doesn’t have a safehouse there. Paris would be best, but Calais would be faster.”

“If that’s the issue, clade Dolorosa will provide.” The pair start at the association of your name with a clade. It is unheard of, for all that it is accurate. “Besides, Amsterdam is a transportation hub much better connected to locations deeper in Europe.”

They look at one another and Leijon huffs a sigh. “We’ll be ready to go in the morning.”

A tight smile. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

* * *

_Amsterdam, day 3_

Arrangements are a floor in a hotel in Central Amsterdam that your team quite obviously checks into as soon as the sun is down. Then, once you’ve taken to your rooms, you round everyone up and exit the building via the stairwells. A warehouse by the tracks is your true resting place, minimally done up by your employees to house the team. 

You are not an idiot, or unaccustomed to travelling incognito, as much as Leijon would like to believe.

* * *

Word comes the next day of likely locations and you exfiltrate Amsterdam to a news report of a fire in the hotel you’d booked.

* * *

_Lukow, day 5_

“This wasn’t in the plans!” a Zahhak hisses.

“Hell, this wasn’t here _yesterday_ ,” another human replies. 

“Did they seriously throw up an entire electrical fence in the space of a day?!”

“We’re compromised, they know we’re coming, we should retreat and-”

“We do not have the time,” you return. You unclasp the chainsword and the small pack you carry and hand them off. Approaching the fence, you breathe out, even as Nepeta steps up, swearing, possibly to try and stop you.

Your left hand touches the electrified fence and you suck in your breath as the lethal current courses into you. It is not some garish show of lightning and electricity, though the fence does rattle with your convulsing touch. But the power on display is palpable to anyone with half a brain. Your teeth very nearly vibrate in your skull and the ground beneath your feet begins to smoke. And your nerves, oh god, your nerves. This is not the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your life, but it just doesn’t seem to _stop_. The tears that leak from your eyes are thick with already-coagulating blood. You have miscalculated, there is so much current in this fence, you are not going to be able to drain it.

So you turn the tables. With what paltry skill with this ability you have developed, you reach into yourself, into whatever organ or cells allow you to store all of this and you _project_.

Sparks well up in the crash of conflicting currents, a great shattering cascade of them that blacken your fingers and cause the scent of burning meat to curl up from your fingers. In the distance, there is a rumble and an eruption of flames and sparks as something blows out in a gout of destruction worthy of an 80s action epic. The flow stops and one hand is joined by the other and with an undignified grunt you tear the chain link fence apart.

Panting now, you wave the team through, only to find them staring open-mouthed at you. You gesture again at the hole and when that doesn’t get them moving, you hiss, unsheathing fangs,

“Gawk later and do your jobs _now_ , if you please!”

It gets Leijon moving, at least, and the rest of the team follows up behind her, casting a few glances your way before you finally take up the rear, taking back your belongings.

* * *

That initial Zahhak assessment was correct. Lucier had definitely noticed your group’s attentions and this location is heavily protected, both by heavy weapons and the mutants. To your team’s advantage, however, they do not appear to be well trained, even the hulking, armoured monstrosity advancing on your position. 

Explosive and high caliber rounds rip through cover and the opposition but nothing is stopping the eight-foot tall thing lumbering your way. 

Leijon barks orders, the team primes grenades and when the thing is close enough to raise what looks like a repurposed, barbed telephone pole, they throw the lot of them. Its chest ruptures into bone and soupy flesh and with a burbling cry, the goliath crunches to its knees and collapses.

The thing is thick enough around its middle to serve as cover, and pairs move forward to make use of its bulk. The rattle of guns rises and turns into a steady thrum as the Zahhak team moves forward, chewing through railings, crates and vehicles with the tiny explosions of the rounds. Despite the carnage, or, indeed, because of it, you are thoroughly salivating. Your reserves are low, having spent a great deal healing the burns on your hands and feet. 

As the team moves further into the facility, dismantling hideous mutants and humans alike, you keep to the rear. And so it is you who reacts when the supposed corpse shudders, springing away as it lashes out with colossal limbs. A sharp, angry cry from the other side of it, and you see Ramirez being held up, head and shoulders engulfed in a meaty fist. Without thinking, you charge the thing as it tries to lever itself upwards.

Out comes the chainsword, roaring painfully as you gun the engined blades. With a high-pitched cry that is more scream than battlecry you bring the weapon down on the unarmoured hand. The mechanical roaring is suddenly muted, suddenly _right_ in a gory, cacophonous way as it carves through mutated flesh as if it were a Sunday roast. The giant screams like a child, blood and bone gout everywhere and Ramirez hits the floor, scrabbling backwards and clearing her sightlines. 

You fall back to her position and watch in sick fascination as the healing properties of multiple clades go to work, stitching flesh back together and trying to form a new hand. What emerges from the arm is nothing like a human limb and its chest’s bone structure protrudes from the ruined meat.

“Are you well?”

“What? Ye-yeah! Thanks fo-”

“Can you fire?” Your voice sounds hatefully querulous and afraid to your own ears, even as you grip the sword harder in the face of the crying, advancing mutant. 

“Damn straight,” comes the growl.

“Give me weakpoints, any limbs you can manage, or that gorget.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

From her position prone on her back, Ramirez shoulders her rifle and squeezes off bursts. As armour and flesh is shattered, you lick your lips and swallow, charging in. Where the armour is blown off, you slash and carve, the Zahhak chainsword cutting through limbs like you would topiary. A shot through the knee staggers the beast, crushing its breastbone to your face. Swearing and crying through the pain, you lop through that leg and drop the thing to its belly, barely rolling out of the way. It burbles and tries to push itself up by the stumps of its arms, but you are having none of it. Riding that chemical high which you can somehow still produce, you scrabble up its back and place the glorified chainsaw onto the back of its neck. Then your entire weight goes onto it and you pull the trigger.

The thing immediately stops its cries, and the churring roar of the sword turns high-pitched and harsh as your carve through vertebrae and gristle. In the distance you hear the gunshots that take you in the back, feel the burn of the bullets crashing into your slight frame, but you keep pressing down, keep jamming that weapon through tainted flesh even as the tainted blood fountains up into your face. You do not stop until the head is severed, until Ramirez is hauling your body off the corpse, away from the sustaining lifeblood that you could be harvesting.

You turn on her then, eyes wide and wild, fangs unsheathed. Some still-cognizant part of your mind reels back from her accepting expression, from her willingly-bared throat. The shock of it seizes your limbs and you roll off her, roll away, heaving in a panic. Blood packs. You have blood packs in your satchel. You haul it off your back, rip through its contents, swearing as you find them punctured by the bullets. Your world is going dark and Ramirez smells so good, so _alive_ behind you, it is all you can do to suck at the draining packs, lick up the last of the blood, and not imagine your teeth making a glorious ruin of her neck, your tongue lashing her ragged in obscenely violent rapture.

Finally your teeth sink into a full pack and it bursts like lukewarm heaven in your mouth. Sucking, swallowing, you stagger back from the satchel, gasping for breath, even as warming lifeblood trickles down your throat. Behind you, Ramirez gets to her feet, calling in the event to long-past teams.

* * *

It’s a mess of a mission. Lee is barely able to get anything off the system and two black bags mark your losses. Ramirez supports your light frame as you rejoin the group, walking slowly. Jorge and Bill are hunched over a pair of corpses, feeding intermittently as an IV links their arteries with the comatose humans’. It is highly irregular and you cast a look at Ramirez.

She looks away and you swear there’s a hint of a blush.

“We prioritize the survival of kin because if worst comes to worst, the kin can bring us back. It sort of… it’s a shortcut, kind of. If we die for kin and are brought back, it’s the highest sacrifice humans can make for the clade, and Lord Equius automatically approves our elevation.”

You give a low hum in response, impressed and distressed all at once. On the one hand, it is a fundamentally decent thing for Equius Zahhak to do. On the other, it leads to things like Ramirez willing to be drained for you. Despite your earlier antagonism, despite the fact that you are Dolorosa, _the_ Dolorosa, and not Zahhak. 

Leijon strides up, rolling her shoulder.

“Lee is still trying to crack their security, thinks he might have a lead, but this was a hard-won fight.”

“It was. My condolences to those who were lost. Do you think Jorge and Bill’s… patients? will recover?”

“Heh, patients. They’re supplicants, which is a pretty crappy holdover from non-combat vocabs, but that’s the way of it. Jorge and Bill’s bloodlines are strong, they should pull through.”

“Good. I am glad.” You shift uncomfortably under Leijon’s gaze as it darts between you and Ramirez. “I apologize if my eagerness to pursue our quarry led to this setback.”

Her eyes come to a rest on you, evaluating. Then,

“No, you were right, strategically. We need to nail this guy to a post, ASAP. This was a mess, but it wasn’t your fault.” She looks the pair of you up and down. “And hey, you seem to have saved this useless bum personally, so, ehn. Can’t fault you too much.”

“Fuck you too, ma’am.”

“Right, let’s get this mess cleared up, back to the safe house.”

* * *

Ramirez continues to aid you, even in as you manage the final steps to your room. It’s small, but it has the luxury of being private, unlike a great many of the rooms in this tiny farmhouse. It’s not even Zahhak, you hear. The clade has leased it from some Rus descendant. The door creaks, and a great many scents, so very old, float up to senses still hyper-acute. But they can’t mask the closest, most obvious.

“Thank you for the help, Ramirez,” you murmur, slipping your arm off her shoulders. 

“Yeah, no problem. You saved my ass, I ain’t gonna sweat some elbow grease.”

“A fair trade, I am sure.”

“Hell no! You-re-” she draws up short. “Oh, you’re joking.”

“Indeed,” you say, giving a wan smile. “I find I still have some reserves of humour.”

“Cool. That’s, uh, good.” Dawdling. What she is doing is best described as dawdling. “Do you need any help? I guess you’ve got extra blood packs…”

Your heart goes out to this woman, clearly starstruck and reeling from her first opinion of you. Other parts of you ache for her as well, reacting to a need clear in the air. You hate yourself for it, but you are slipping.

“I suppose it would be easier if…”

“If…?” her tone is so hopeful, so eager. You wonder if this is how Roux felt, wrapping people around her finger with the sheer force of charisma. You lack that asset, but reputation and power have made up the deficit throughout human history. 

“If there were someone to extract the bullets still in me.”

Her eyes go wide. “Shit, I thought they’d passed through you!”

You unbutton your jacket and flash her fabric, the front of the tactical sweater free of bullet holes. Ramirez’s gaze does not so much follow as linger. God, you hate yourself, even as you lick your lips. 

“If you are amenable, I believe my physiology has pushed them out fairly close to my back. I swear I felt one grrriiind-”

You stop the throaty growl even as it purrs out of your throat, a hand darting up to your mouth in fruitless, embarrassed restraint. Ramirez has noticed anyway, and there is a slyness about her smile that lets you hate yourself more.

“Sure. Wouldn’t be the first surgery I’ve done. And you won’t have to deal with my shitty stitches, I guess.”

You hold the door open then, ushering her inside. The room is small, barely enough room for the pair of you. When the both of you hesitate, you give a laughing smile and gesture at the bed, bidding her to take a seat.

“Have you, ah, equipment?”

“Um. I’ve got a combat knife?”

“Mmm. A bit… brutal for these measures.” You sort through your duffel, picking out a slender case. You slide a slender exactoknife out from sewing supplies and hand it to her. “Do be careful. It may… snap.”

Then you turn from her, and slowly, achingly, draw the sweater off. It hurts and burns and you can feel the bullets grind against your ribs, your shoulderblades, setting off tiny storms of neurochemical pain. You seat yourself before her, pressing back against her parting legs and Ramirez sucks in a breath as she takes in your back. Fingertips are suddenly hot on your skin and you flush as you feel her tracing those callous digits across the brown expanse of you back. She circles a nub of bright hot pain and whispers,

“God, they’re right at the surface.”

“Good,” you grunt. “It will be quicker, then.”

Cold steel touches your bare flesh and even as you shiver, she begins. 

You are not a strong or brave woman. You know this, deep within you, where you keep your secrets and your fears and your lusts. So as Ramirez begins to cut, you have to stifle a shrieking cry, have to grind your teeth and clench your throat to choke out the scream. Without the chemical rush of life-or-death, you are a weeping damsel. Hate, shame and weakness press at you, even as Ramirez’ deft hands cut the offending shards out. The chill of the metal clashes discordantly with the warm rush of blood leaking from you, with the pained voice marvelling at your beautiful, soft skin, whispering apologies. 

And after, after you have ruined your bra, the sheets of this house, Ramirez take you up in her arms and kisses away pink-tinged tears. In an embrace carved from determination and hard muscle, you stutter to her your own mea culpas for your weakness, your frailty. And to the ghost of Rose Lalonde you whisper your apologies for your betrayal. You are weak, even as warm lips breathe against your skin that you are not, that you are strong and beautiful, a pillar to your cause and kind. You want to believe them, you want _so much_ to believe them, so you give in to them.

Scared, trembling lips press against each other and in the dark of this tiny room, you pull the warm human to you, letting her heat fill you from without and within. Your tongues touch hesitantly, then with more ardour, until the inhuman length of yours wraps around hers and she clutches you to you with a heated groan. Hands slick with blood strip bra straps down and when she breaks the kiss, the fire of her lips along your collarbone cause you to buck against her in a spasm of need. When they pass lower, taking a darkened nub into her mouth you cry out, claws nearly shredding through her sweater.

Gasping and wide eyed, she arches away from the rakes, pressing into you, baring her neck. The need is deep and vibrant between the pair of you and so you bare fangs in a sultry stretch of your jaws, your tongue snaking out to lap at the sweaty flesh of her neck. She shivers, convulses in your grip from the delivered intoxicants and then, with aching, perfect slowness, you sink your teeth into her. 

The Red Kiss explodes across your palate, her nervous system and you spend yourselves for the first time tonight.

* * *

_In transit, day 6_

“There’s a message for you.”

“What has Equi...ah, Lord Zahhak to say?”

“It’s not from Equius.”

“...Ah.”

“Yeah.”

A tablet screen is presented to you. 

“Hello, Miss Maryam, I trust this communication finds you well?”

“As well as can be expected, Scratch.”

“Ah, so she’s infected you with that horrid nickname as well, hmm?”

“Infection is such an interesting word choice, coming from you.”

“Ah! She wounds me! Ah...hahahahahahahaha!” A mouth stretched too wide, laughter breaking into the manic.

“When you are done with the self-indulgent laughter, perhaps you can get to the point of this call?”

Jowled jaws shut with a snapping _click_. “I know you’re coming, Kanaya Maryam. I am following your little troupe’s progress with great interest. Rest assured that you are doing me no great damage.”

“So little, in fact, that you are ever-so-confident in contacting me like this.”

“Correct! This world’s eradication is a given. I have spent the past decades bending the laws of physics to ease my lord’s return, but even without this frail frame, his return would be-”

“His? I thought this was an inter-dimensional manifestation of entropy and destruction, a star-eating creature that reproduces by a hyper-advanced form of mitosis. Are you so desperate for patriarchal power that you would misgender your master?” 

Over the top of the screen Leijon has to clamp her hands around her mouth to prevent herself from bursting into laughter.

In the screen, the pallid man scowls. “Mock all you like, Maryam but your people’s secrets are mine for the exploitation now. All you are doing is taking out my trash.”

Silence, and a brooding air that settles about your features like low fog. 

“All those secrets, for what?” you ask, quietly.

“The world is ending, dear girl, I intend to make it my playground for its last days.”

“No... No, I do not believe that statement that just left your mouth. You are hoping for something else. As much as you claim to want the destruction of this world, you want to _survive_. Not quite the mindless fanatic that you so arduously seek to play with this game of half-mad mockery.”

The face on the tablet drops into emotionless immobility. 

“I would have to wonder then, what else you have planned. Harvesting the genetic codes of kin to your own ends and not your master’s, why-”

The transmission goes dark.

“-one might think you intended to deviate from his plan.”

WIth less care than you should exercise, you drop the tablet on the table, leaning back in the chair. Nepeta is looking at you with cat-like intensity. 

“What was that all about? Who’s this asshole’s ‘master?’”

“At the risk of sounding horrifically cliche, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“We’re mixed vampire and human special forces, working together to take down a human sorcerer and you think there’s something I wouldn’t believe.”

“I doubt this Scratch is a sorcerer himself. The equipment we continue to find suggests a scientific polymath. There are none of the accoutrements of sorcery that one would expect at the sites, even for one attempting fusion of the two practices.”

The shorter woman leans back, taking up the tablet. “And you’re an expert in these matters from hanging around that Lalonde woman?”

“Women,” you correct. “And do you have to be an expert to tell the difference between an American cartoon and an anime?”

Leijon flinches subtly at that. “Worry not, I won’t be telling anyone about the Crunchyroll apps hidden on all your official equipment.”

The blush that rushes up Nepeta’s face is too much and your face splits in a giggling grin.

* * *

_The Black Forest, day 8_

Roaring.

A roaring like nothing else, a roaring that reverberates on an atomic level. This is the cry of burning stars, punctuated by the scream of their death knells. It is a sound inconceivable by mortal minds and so it affects them on a deeper, more subtly spirtual level. Like the growl of a mountain lion freezing deer in place, the soul seizes at the tremor.

_i will have a word, biohazard_

You are struck dumb.

_the willing slave thinks himself clever to hide this plan from me, but he is a fool. a dumb, dumb silly fool. how can he hide things from me when i am already here, in his mind. if he were as clever as he thought, he’d realize that being the prime veil-weakener would leave him vulnerable -_

_\- but I get off topic. i do that, when i have to compress my magnificent brain thoughts to deal with you insects. the scratched thing is too frail for my liking, completely unsuitable as a vessel._

_you, you on the other hand, are an excellent option. won’t you let me inhabit you for a bit? You put the lie to being the weaker sex, so kill the little scientist man, take his brainmeats into you and become my locus. i’ll even give you closure with that-_

The word, the concept that the thing speaks makes you want to hurl. It is the roiling of worms in corpses, the bursting of many-eyed flies out of the chrysalis of maggot-things, the dark drip of ichor down fleshwalls of screaming, singing choirs. It is the ephemeral grappling of gangling pseudopodia, cold, slick and wet, of that slickness finding purchase within you-

It is so familiar it _hurts_ and you-

* * *

-scream awake, ripping covers from you and latching claws into cottony softness of the mattress.

Nepeta startles from the twin bed across the room from you, her phone flipping into the air, the bright flashing of whatever show she’s watching casting almost floral radiance around the room. Her earbuds go with it, held too-loosely in her ears, a sore point some nights. Now, with your reality buckling from beneath you, your conscious mind tries to re-assert control over the animal hindbrain running amok, urging you to flight.

The distant, tinny screeching of anime characters helps ground you, a little thing so absurdly abstract and opposed to your nightmare. You are in a small inn outside Stuttgart, on the edge of the Black Forest. Rich wood grain with lovely texture swirls in the beams of the place and there’s a heavy warmth from the heating. You gain ground, your sanity re-asserting itself. It’s not without failings as sanity brings with it that mental perspicacity that revolts at the thought of-

-there’s no amount of bombastic animated protagonists that will hold your stomach down, so you bolt for the toilet, hand covering your mouth. A horrible clench in your midsection and acrid fluid erupts past your fingers before you’re angled at the bowl, and the porcelain is doused in what is distinctly mortal viscera. You don’t know what you expected. 

That is a lie, that. You expected black, boiling-

-you reel from that sense of inevitability once more, unable to face the consequences of a given set of actions.

Behind you, you sense the looming figure of Leijon. A rolling rattle that you can’t quite place until folded toilet paper is placed under your hand. You twitch, reflexively, almost gripping the small, calloused paw in an urgent need for contact. She notices and pauses before withdrawing. Hesitantly, a hand lands on your shoulder, attempting comfort.

“Want me to swap with Ramirez?”

You try to find your voice beyond the acrid burn of the hellish purge, but your throat is having none of it. Instead, a harsh, abrupt shake of your head will have to suffice, a motion that sends what blood is left in your head sloshing loosely, and bringing you to the verge of blacking out. 

“C’mon, Dolorosa, I don’t think you gotta worry about looking weak in front of that one.”

“It’s not-” you gasp, “It’s not that. The vision… I feel…”

You shiver, but it’s more of a shudder and suddenly you feel unclean, the weight of that final vision crashing into you. You heave dryly into the bowl. Gagging, horrified at the memory of corruption and your own carnal desire for it. Saliva glands constrict in your cheeks as you try to come up with liquid to clean your tastebuds with. Even after such mortal, organic pleasures, you still ache and pant for the otherworldly.

It is a trial not to weep into the mess before you.

Nepeta’s there again, filling a cup with water from the quaint wooden sink. Wordlessly she she passes it to you. Swish, rinse, spit. Another mouthful. Then, finally the wad of toilet paper gets used. You want to gargle with Listerine for a week, the taste of dead blood and clade symbiotes still clinging to the back of your maw. But you are afraid of the sting, the clinical sting that will feel too good even as it burns your regrets free.

The papers are discarded into the bowl with a too-negligent flick of your wrist and the whole mess flushed without looking. Nepeta is looking at you warily as you rise, coming off your knees steadily, slowly. She gives you room to wash your hands, your chin, your face and hands you a facecloth at the end of it all. You feel very strange about this, sharing a moment with a girl who had been ready to put a bullet through your heart a few weeks ago.

“Was it the sorcerer?” she asks, all niceties gone now in the face of blunt interrogation.

“No, and he’s not a sorcerer,” you murmur, collecting yourself. “Merely a reminder that there remain higher powers, higher stakes.”

She cocks an eyebrow at this, but lets you pass.The loss of that reservoir has left you weary, but you cannot, will not sleep. A bloodpack is cracked from the small cooler in the corner and you suck down its contents with ill vigour. Then you turn back to Leijon.

“What were you watching?”

She blinks, clearly surprised. “Um, Haikyuu. It’s, uh-”

“The volleyball one, yes?”

The blinking this time is sheer incredulity.

“Perhaps you’d like to cast it? I could do with some queer-baiting, oblivious protagonists.”

“Uh… sure. Um…”

You haven’t seen her this flustered since the first time you met.

“Terribly sorry, did you think my august position precluded my enjoyment of the more juvenile forms of escapism?”

“Um, it’s just… really? Anime?”

“Please. I can still sing the entirety of Rinbu Revolution.” As her eyes go wide in shock and her face shifts to _unmitigated glee_ you rapidly rethink your position. “Badly. And when I’m not rasping through a scoured throat.”

“Oh, Maryam, you don’t know what you’ve done. I am _getting_ that song out of you.”

* * *

_Valangin, day 9_

“So this is a thing that’s happening,” growls a nameless Zahhak soldier, replaced from some hidden cell that the Dolorosa had no interaction with. It is a testament to her growing trust in Zahhak or, at least, Leijon.

“Yup.”

“We’re attacking a fucking castle.”

“Yup.”

“We’re armed with automatic weaponry, high explosives, digital gear and we’re assaulting a castle.”

“That is also defended with automatic weaponry, high explosives, and digital gear. I count at least six machine gun emplacements, three flak cannons that might be able to traverse downward and more antenna emplacements than I know how to identify. Also pretty sure some of the grunts carry AT-8s.”

“Well… we’ve got vampires?”

“Dude, what? Did you somehow miss the whole fucking point of this campaign? They’ve got vampires too!”

“Nah, those’re mutants. Besides, none of theirs can do that.”

A jerked thumb points in the direction of a garage, where a BMW revs constantly, powering a battery to which jumper cables are attached. A woman in smoking black rags holds onto the other ends, staring into the middle distance, ignoring the arcs that sometimes form between licks of her hair, her eyelashes and the gap of her panting mouth. Her skin bubbles at her hands, cracking and popping and healing over immediately. The very ground beneath her feet has blackened, with small fires still starting every few seconds. She blinks, and tears of red blood dribble down brown cheeks.

“Any supplicants on their feet yet?”

“Yeah, two. They’ve got them benching trucks and sucking down packs at the foot of the mountain.”

“What are the chances one of them brings a sword?”

“About as good as one of them bringing a bow.”

“I mean… there’s an argument for stealth that-”

“We’re going to be assaulting a fucking castle. Stealth is going to last exactly as long as it takes one person to notice and then there’s gonna be Noise.”

“Yeah,” the other one says, checking the last battle rifle. “In the end, despite what they’d prefer, that’s really what Leijon’s good for, yeah? Wrath, destruction, and Noise.”

* * *

It does not go to plan.

It does not go to plan, _at all_. 

Their initial breach of the wall, aided by a stolen glider hurled by two Zahhak off a nearby mountain, went well, but the response from within the stone walls had been overwhelming. Their forces were met by a tidal wave of shifting, screaming flesh, let loose from the dark confines of the citadel. The mutants screeched, slathered and tore into them, even as disciplined rifle fire hammered them down. 

And then the sentries stationed on the walks opened up. 

The press of the horrible things assaulting them was, in a way, a horrible boon, in that they acted as shields against the rain of bullets. Those fighting closer to the core were less lucky. Half a dozen go down in the initial barrage and that’s when everything goes to hell. Ramirez’s corpse hits the ground wetly, a gaping hole through her neck, her spine.

* * *

Your name is Nepeta Leijon and one of the most jarring, disconcerting things you have ever seen is lightning without thunder. 

Well, not without, really. It’s just that thunder usually isn’t the ear-shattering, throat-tearing scream of a Clade Mother.

That, and lightning normally strikes from the sky.

The walls do not so much fall as detonate, melt and disintegrate. Maryam’s arms are burned from the elbow down, her hands crisped shards of bone and char, leaking something that may once have been blood, but bubbles darkly and staines the flagstones beneath your feet colours that do not belong in an organic body. What remains of the mutants, once awed like your squads by the arcing displays of wrath, ebb back and try to retreat. Weeping, the Dolorosa impales one on the ruins of her arm and hauls it bodily to her to suck it dry. As a warping and mending limb is drawn out the gorey hole it’s made, you open up with the remains of Zahhak on fleeing, crying bodies.

* * *

You can smell the taint of mutation herein, the cloying, repulsive reek of parasites intermingling and cannibalizing one another on a microscopic level. You don’t know if it is just your bloodline or all of the kin who recoil at the very air. But your gut churns and it is difficult to keep down reserves that are being rapidly drained. Scraps of skin and charred flesh still flake from your aching, creaking hands and though it is likely a much lighter cost, you haven’t stopped crying.

You don’t think anyone cares as you drive the chainsword through another body, bisecting it with nary a growl. The backswing crunches into a head, dropping another corpse. Your soldiers spatter anything that moves with bursts of fire, explosive rounds from over-sized rifles enough to down or outright kill the freshly born not-kin.

But your progress cannot advance so smoothly and soon there is that infernal buzzing at the edges of your mind.

“Mindfang vampires ahead,” you snap.

Leijon swallows and nods. “Guess we were lucky lasting this long. Hoods up, boys.”

Equius Zahhak has been ready for internecine war for centuries and had ordered the development of countermeasures for almost every clade. Mindfang’s had always proven the hardest, as even modern science has trouble understanding the human, and by extension, vampire brain. Specialized balaclavas were about the only thing his researchers had been able to come up with. The hope here is that they will provide enough resistance to allow you to end the pretenders before they get their fangs into the brains of heavily armed and highly skilled anti-chiropteran soldiers.

You, who have drunk from the font of that bloodline, the old, irresponsible Matriarch herself. You can feel their claws trying to get into your brain, but they _will not_ crack you. Nostrils flaring and heart pounding, you jog forward, trying to sniff them out, trying to ignore the exhaustion that leaks from your every limb. 

Their scent stands out from the dank, mildewy air of the the castle, thankfully. At a T-intersection, the scent strengthens and you prepare for an attack, coming up on your toes and rolling the sword in your hand. Moments pass and nothing happens. Slowly you reach for your belt and pull two grenades free, pulling the pins. A four count and then you whip the things down each corridor with blinding speed, where they erupt in mid-air to startled screams. 

The buzzing immediately falls off and you dart around to the right, flowing through the acrid smoke to punch two mauled and burned heads into paste against the wall. Moaning comes from behind as back in the hallway another explosion sounds, following by the deafening rattle of battle rifles. You sprint to the other turn of the T and slam your revving blade through two more false-Serket necks before hauling yourself around to help the squad. They struggle with one another, trying to bring up weapons and striking out in with close-quarters blows.

Nepeta faces off with what you know is a Serket, a sneering man who has tried toying with her and is missing several fingers already. Before you can close, he steps in to trap Nepeta’s gun arm and almost lazily takes a swipe at her throat, trusting in augmented speed.

But Nepeta is Zahhak in name and Leijon in training, so she shifts, dislocating her gun arm to dodge the killing blow. It still slices into her neck, causing a fountain of blood to spurt out, but it doesn’t remove her throat entirely. Then, with blinding speed of her own, she pivots, slamming a punch into the creature’s chest.

It drops like stone and her tripled-bladed punch dagger goes with it, stuck through the monster’s chest. Nepeta slaps her working hand against the wound, snarling silently as you arrive skidding at her side. The squad ceases its fighting and falls over themselves trying to get her first aid.

“Dolorosa, quick, your saliva should seal the wound!” one of them shouts.

Nepeta swears and waves you off. “Artery’s cut, sealing the skin will only bleed into my neck. Get me a compress and let’s go. Time’s wasting.”

“Nepeta, you are too-”

“Shove it, Maryam. We’re down too many people as it is, we need as many guns on target as possible. Holter, help me with my arm.”

You turn from the spectacle of popping the little warrior’s arm back in and take the lead again. As the only remaining upright vampire, your senses are too valuable to waste being protected. Through silent corridors, clashing with ancient stone and LED lighting, you lead them. Through thick stone walls you crash, ambushing ambushers, ripping off heads to sate a growing hunger, stoked by growing exhaustion. Yours is not a warrior clade, and soon you will have to rest.

This is, of course, when you find Scratch.

* * *

“Go on, dear, say hello to the Dolorosa.”

The little man, reeking of mutation now and absolutely thrumming with stolen power, urges a small child forward.

You are frozen in what you’d thought would be a small side room. The soldiers behind you collapsed immediately upon entry, convulsing and frothing at the mouth as some unseen power affects them. The compress on Nepeta’s neck blossoms into red as her muscles spasm, but all you can do is focus on the little blond girl, walking unsteadily towards you.

With a start, you realize the reek isn’t coming from Scratch, but the girl. Your eyes widen and dart towards him.

“Oh yes. Little Ruth is a grand leap forward in my work. She was suffering from horrible leukemia, you know, before I was able to treat her. My main interests are of course cosmic in nature, but recent developments necessitated my interest in biology. And the possibilities of the chiropteran gene framework were too great to ignore.”

All around you the ruined walls of the castle are sealed in by modern glass and the floor transitions into great slabs of clinical steel. The clear Swiss night twinkles down into a lab of blinking lights and sprawling LED displays. Great arcing stations of equipment take up every corner of the room, with a surgical table taking up a position of honour, a path of darkened steel directing viewers to it like some stygian carpet.

Ruth walks towards you, eyes huge and dilated and you swallow. You have drunk of so many bloodlines tonight and they all swim before you in the complex odour wafting from her smock-clad form. Her small size belies the immense presence that looms before you, some unclean combination of unhinged psychics and ill, clouding stench. Were she trained, the girl would probably have been able to crush Spinneret’s mind like an egg.

“Madamoiselle, j’ai tellement faim,” she whispers tottering towards you. Even now you can see the great incisors splitting through her gums as she smells beating hearts behind you. Two, then four, then six teeth split through pink gums, turning her mouth into a tiny maw of death. 

“Ah, ma petite fille, venez ici,” you manage, kneeling and holding your arms out, your heart in your throat from what Scratch is making you do, the monster. No external compulsion this, just a last, desperate attempt at decency before the end. “La Dolorosa vous nourrira.”

“Merci Madamoiselle, mais pourquoi es-tu triste?”

“Yes, Scratch, what on Earth could possibly be the reason for such a naming convention, stretching back to Babylon and beyond?” you ask, your voice low and cracking, blood tears welling up again.

“Oh this silly duty of care that your line insists on, ensuring the sanity of your brethren at the cost of your own free will. It makes you _so_ easy to manipulate.”

You enfold Ruth in a hug, sharing with her your scant and escaping body heat. The girl nearly sobs with relief before snapping down on your neck like a viper.

“Your predisposition to the sciences is plainly apparent, Doctor Lucier,” you gasp as the girl begins to feed. “As is your lack of respect for the softer disciplines, like that history which had done in so many of us.”

Something like concern flits over Scratch’s face then. 

In a soft, angry voice, “So he _did_ speak with you, as well.”

“Hmm?” You murmur, fighting through the anaesthetic of the young kin’s bite. “Oh, your master did try to goad me into usurping you, but whatever history you are ignorantly referring to is not that which I reference.”

The pleasant egg-like face distorts as the doctor moves forward. “I am _not_ ignor-”

A laugh, a ghosting thing you barely believe yourself capable of.

“Oh Scratch, you are as easy to manipulate as Roxy said.”

“What,” he hisses. “I have revolutionized biomedical care by plundering your secrets, you damned parasite. Please elaborate how you believe you have manipulated me.”

“We are at the centre of your research facilities now, Scratch. That information will not reach the outside world,” you murmur through heavy lips, heavy lids.

“Ha! The _ignorance_ of backwards aristocracy! Why, right now,” he takes a phone from a pocket and taps at it with his thumb, “I have backed up my entire research databases offsite.”

A sleepy smile. You pat the girl on her head and whisper. “Un moment, cherie.”

Thankfully the girl retracts, watching in fascination as thick blood flows from the over-sized holes in your neck. You pull a phone of your own out of a pouch and dial a number. When someone answers, you hold it out and put it on speakerphone.

“Mr. Lee. You have it?”

“Aye, Dolorosa. Six different IPs around the world. Zahhak and allied forces are moving on them now.”

The sleepiness in your smile evaporates as you put techniques taught to you by Roux into action and kick adrenaline into your system. A brief jet of blood squirts from your neck and spatters across Ruth’s hospital gown as your system goes into overdrive, harvesting the massive glut of blood in your gut for resources, repairing wounds and strengthening failing muscles.

A smile, razor edged. “So secure in your own superiority, Scratch. You did not for a moment think that you were dealing with people that were, in the first, _smarter_ than you and, in the second, not after you at all.”

“What?!” he snarls, veins popping on his bald head, blood tears welling from over-stressed eyes.

“I find myself excessively disappointed in your continuing stupidity, Lucier. We were here for your data. In the information age, you are nothing but secondary.”

“That- You will still need to kill me, Dolorosa. I can recreate all of my techniques and results from, heheh, ‘scratch’ if need be.”

“Incorrect. Did you even do any research into the clades before attempting this ludicrous usurpation attempt? Even your master seems to understand mortal society better than you.”

“What are you talking about?” the mutant asks angrily, body bulging obscenely as he begins to lose control of the host of parasites within him.

“Do you even know who Zahhak is?”

He gestures to a bank of drawers on the wall behind the surgery, all labelled, to your distant shock, with bloodlines from the past and present. They line the wall behind the surgical table, twelve by twelve. “A line that provides increased muscle mass and bone density as part of its para-”

“I said _who_ , little Dian.”

He snarls, bubbles of blood popping out between his teeth.

“I thought not. Equius Zahhak has ruled his clade for centuries and has become one of the foremost blood purists in the world. While his demeanour is archaic, he is also supremely well connected politically.

“Sufficiently so to suggest a dilapidated, ownerless castle as a training objective for Swiss F-5s.”

His eyes go wide.

“In no universe did I ever have to win here, Scratch. The extent of my objective here was to force you to expose your hidden caches, as we already had detailed knowledge of all the more… traceable ones.”

The squat little toad of a creature before you heaves for breath through mutated jaws, featuring too many teeth, enough fangs to make even Ruth’s little maw look human. She hides her face in your pant leg in fear, the poor thing.

“And so I ask again, dear Dian,” you whisper, the razor of your voice slicing through the air, a threat made palpable. A hand cups the back of Ruth’s little head comfortingly, stroking feathery blond hair. “Why am I called the Dolorosa?”

The triptych that you all form holds for a moment, the beast that Dian Lucier has worked himself into hesitating.

“Because as much as it pains me, I will do what is best for my children.”

Your hand crushes Ruth’s skull like an egg.

* * *

_Day 7, Bonn_

Equius regards the container you offer him with trepidation and no little reverence.

“You cannot be serious.”

“This threat is beyond the petty feud between us, Zahhak. I will not fail in the execution of my duties, but I may die. I ask that you take Duena into your household until this issue is resolved, and, should I pass, Raise her as the next Dolorosa.”

Somewhere in the enormous slab of muscle that represents his shoulders and throat Equius Zahhak swallows.

“I would have your word that she be allowed to follow Porrim’s philosophies, her teachings, but otherwise you would be free to direct her until such a time that she can safely find her own way. She may not be as young as… some were, but she may prove amenable to your… social aesthetics.”

Eyes so blue as to be black stare down at the titanium, temperature-controlled case. Within, six blood packs represent your legacy, the continued survival of the Dolorosa line in these maddening times. Enough to Turn Duena. She is not the perfect choice, but she is the one you have.

“I give it,” Lord Zahhak manages, thickly. He holds out his massive hands with no little apprehension and accepts the gleaming case from you. He takes it to the massive whalebone desk and carefully lays it down before moving to a gilded, gem-encrusted egg. Popping it open on a clever, twisting hinge, he takes a single drop of something from within and bends down awkwardly to look for something. Presently, he finds it and straightens.

With more pomp and circumstance than you think a single person could muster, he approaches, a platter held out before him. In the middle rests a small, iridescent blue pill or candy.

“It is of little worth, given the treasure you have left in my keeping. But please accept this token of Zahhak science.”

You raise the thing to the light. Your eyes focus, closer to the microscopic than almost any living thing and with no little surprise you realize the iridescence doesn’t come from any crystalline properties, but from rapid organic writhing and wriggling. 

“Pure, refined Zahhak symbiotes. Molecularly conditioned to suborn themselves to the extant dominant cladestrain.

“You do the work of the kin, Dolorosa. Zahhak will not see you fail. Our resources are yours.”

You enfold the tiny gift into a fist that you bring to your chest in a respectful, thankful bow.

* * *

The squat, gorilla-esque form of Scratch charges you and not all kin are equal. You are not a warrior and so his initial rush catches you off-guard, allowing him to wrap malformed but incredibly strong fingers around your middle to dash you off the floor. You cry out, bounce, and roll away. He is suddenly in your space, his knee crashing into your face, breaking bones and smashing blood vessels into ruin. 

The arc your body describes would almost be graceful were it not so macabre, your dizzied mind thinks. Then you impact the ground, bones crunching, nerves screaming.

“Heh, well thought out, Dolorosa. I applaud your willingness to sacrifice yourself in the face of your kinds imminent irrelevance.” His voice is distorted, sounds horribly off-key through the warping mutations that ripple through his flesh like biological fads. For a brief instance, you think you can see tiny horns erupt from his forehead as he stalks towards you. 

“But you miscalculated. With my upgrades to this mortal body, I should be able to clear the blast zone in time. Why, just last night I clocked my landspeed at seventy-five kilometers per hour. And I don’t think the Swiss would bomb such a place with anything powerful enough to catch me.”

Instead of visiting you any further harm, he steps over your prone body, making for the exit. Already he is beginning to master the changes to his body, the mad warping coming under control.

“It was a good strategy, Dolorosa, and I must say, it surprised me. But I’ll rebuild, and you’ll find all you’ve done is enter the world into a biological arms race.”

Your bones reknit themselves, still utilizing the revolting, sloshing quantities of blood in your stomach. Your vision swims, corrects itself. If he isn’t lying about his speed, the Swiss roads will see him clear in no time at all. So you sharpen your tongue and slice a length into your cheek flesh. Working the muscles of your face deposits the Zahhak morsel into your mouth from the pocket you’d sealed it in.

Between your teeth, it pops, wetly. 

You swallow, and stand, raising your hands to the heavens.

“Oh Caliborn,” you intone half-mockingly, half-seriously, causing Scratch to very nearly leap out of his skin in surprise and terror, “grant me the strength to lay low this pretender, this betrayer of your Descension. Grant me the power you promised-”

Your chest caves in, bursting your heart and lungs as Lucier is suddenly in front of you, driving his fist into your sternum in an attempt to cut short your communion with his god. Wrath and uncharacteristic panic fill his bubbling, pudgy face and his mutations begin to get away from him again.

But, oh, you were never communing. And your organs do not burst. The extracted Zahhak elixir is blessedly quick-acting. Your bones bend and crack, but do not shatter and you are thrown back, a ragdoll given life. Your skidding, bouncing path passes Ruth and an arm flashes out to pick her corpse up. The stress of the Zahhak parasites causes your body to blow through your reserves and so you punch a clawed fist through the dead girl’s chest and out her back and bite into her corrupted heart. 

A swallow, two.

You feel… different.

Scratch looks up at you, twisting and craning his distorted neck in a manner he shouldn’t need to. When you toss the poor child’s corpse aside, ripping it clean through the arm that still holds its heart, it flies twenty feet further than it should, and that’s when you realize the changes that have suddenly overcome you. 

If you had a mirror, you would realize you look more like that Zahhak woman who flirted with you not that long ago. 

Instead, you flex a fist, relishing the popping of joints and roll of carbon-hard muscles under your skin. 

Scratch attacks with all the blinding speed of too many clades.

You counter. 

You counter with all the training provided you by Spinneret Mindfang all those years ago, all the training provided by this tiny pseudo-clade you and Nepeta built, all the on-the-job training of being the most hunted vampire on the planet. Your hands move in patterns that intercept all his myriad strikes and your footwork is as delicate as a ballerina’s and as stolid as a sumo rikishi’s. His mind claws at yours, but you have drunk from the font of Serket and _made love to an angel **and you are a fortress immaculate**_.

An elbow breaks his fist. 

A heel crunches through tarsal and metatarsals. 

Another fist is caught and in a movement that you dedicate to Ramirez’s memory you flip him over your shoulder and into the ground. 

Another heel shatters his pelvis, slamming through guts and offal. 

His eyes stare up at you, unseeing, as his mind dissociates from the pain. You hold an palm out unconsciously, and discharge the energy of creation.

The warped, distended head of Dian Lucier turns into a greasy smear on the flagstones of a castle in the Swiss Alps.

 _That was for you, dear Rose_ , you think, perversely.

 _ahahhahahhahaha_ hisses a voice from the back of your skull, _when was the last time you wracked under the angel’s tender ministrations?_

Cold blood runs through your veins as your regard the smoking, crackled flesh of your palm.

_not so immaculate, eh, bitch? ehehehehehe. did you think you could already escape what was already here?_

* * *

“Get up.”

“Duh-Dolorosa? We- did you-?”

“Move it, soldier. Get this body onto that table and get her hooked up.”

“Wha- ma’am, what’s happening?”

“I refuse to lose another soldier, another friend, _another child_ to this desperate scheme, now _get her hooked up as best as you can, medic!_ ”

“Y-yes ma’am!”

“Good. Mr. Lee, are you there?”

“Yes, Dolorosa!”

“Cancel the bombing run, authorization Zebra Delta Four One Three.”

“Yes, Dolorosa… Fliegerstaffel Acht, Destructors confirm receipt of disengage order. You’re clear ma’am.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lee. Please send to the castle Zahhak and/or allied forces at their leisure.”

A chuckle. “Ma’am, they will be there ASAP.”

* * *

The enormous hall in Rome thrums with the voices of so many clade leaders, normally polite enough to give a speaker silence. But your report and revelations have sent a charge of excitement and worry through their ranks. The potential implications of the process will be enough to change the kin world forever.

“...and propose that the first resurrected clade, Leijon, be stewarded by Equius Zahhak until such a time as they can provide a clade leader themselves. Given his status as sanctuar of their surviving humans and haemofonts, this should not pose too great a problem.”

Equius’ eyes are wide, his massive hands gripping his knees in lieu of the arm rests he has already crushed to splinters at your report. 

“This is all very well, Dolorosa,” a voice calls out, wavering at first, but gathering strength, “But surely an announcement of this magnitude would require some manner of proof?”

“Indeed. You will all note that on this Council’s Personae Vitae I have, for once, made use of the attendants clause.” Finally, because there was no way you were ever bringing Duena to this den of vipers, though many clade leaders brought particularly striking or famous haemofonts as status symbols. You watch as Equius and dozens of others unroll the antiquated scroll, searching for your attendant.

You watch as he, in shock, pulverizes the vellum and rod in his herculaen grip. You flex your fingers in an imitation of that grip, missing in a bittersweet manner the swollen power of a Zahhak form.

“My lords, ladies and nobles - I present to you Nepeta Leijon, Reborn.”

The figure behind you steps forward and tosses back the hood of her combat cowl. Haemofonts are common attendants, but so are bodyguards, which is how her stalking form of rippling muscle was smuggled in. Nepeta’s eyes adjust to the spotlight that flits from you to her, pupils shrinking to feline slits. Her hair is a wild, wiry mane that cascades back from a headband and fades into downy sideburns. She bares her teeth in a grin, thick, ever-present incisors distinguishing her from many clades.

The murmuring in the chamber grows, until the Chair, a wizened old crone of a kin bangs her gavel, irritated and clears her voice in a disgusting hacking cough. That is apparently enough to shame a great many clades and the rest fall into line presently. 

Equius stands and addresses the Council. “I would be remiss in my duties if I did not question this turn of events. As far as I know Nepeta Leijon was killed in the final destruction of Dian Lucier’s holdings. I regret that I have to question this person’s authenticity. Plastic surgery, skilled makeup, and clade abilities, any of these things could make one fit the appearance of Nepeta Leijon, reborn or not.”

Nepeta visibly recoils from the accusation, faltering in her confidence.

“Perhaps if more… concrete evidence were presented of her ascension?” Equius does something with his wrist, a gesture something like, _if you will_. It means nothing in particular to you, but Nepeta’s grin returns, along with a breathy growl. Equius’ hands go to his ears and after a moment, yours follow in a suddenly realized panic.

Nepeta’s chest swells as transformed lungs fill and-

* * *

Miles away, pigeons and other birds take flight from rooftops, trees, and telephone poles.

* * *

Miles away, a slight vibration in the ground goes otherwise unnoticed, except for a some flaking of ancient stucco, saplings quivering in the soil. 

The little quake passes as they often do.

* * *

Miles all around, cats off all kinds start, arch their backs and hiss at shadows in unison. 

Some of those shades retreat.

* * *

“-what Leijon’s good for, yeah? Wrath, destruction, and-”

* * *

\- a Leijon _makes some noise_.

Even clamped shut as your ears are, her roar fills your heart to bursting and clears your mind, even as chips of stone flutter down all around from the shaking building. It is a ringing bell that wipes away all doubt and blankets the cold parts of your heart with pure, beastial purpose. It is the very sound that trumpets and brass sought to imitate, the notes that brought down the walls of Jericho. For a moment, all clouds, all abysses of self-doubt are banished and the shining sun that you draw power from blazes in your Mind. For a moment, you can believe in the future. For a moment, you know you have done the right thing.

For a moment, Nepeta gives you hope.


End file.
